
HARLESE. MERRILL CO. 




Class 

Book 

Copyright}]" 



COPYRIGHT deposit: 



GRADED SUPPLEMENTARY READIXO SERIES 

GREAT INVENTIONS 
AND DISCOVEKIES 



BY 



WILLIS DUFF PIEllCY 




NEW YORK 
CHARLES E. MERRILL COMPANY 






\ 



Copyright, 1911 
By Charles E. Merrill Co. 



^z\.^v.r>'.^v,{\ 



CONTENTS 



Chapter Page 

I. Intrbduction 7 

II. The Printing Press 15 

III. The Steam Engine 30 

IV. Electricity: The Telegrai)h and the Telephone . . . 56 
V. Electricity: Lighting, Transportation, and Other Uses 78 

VI. The Discovery of America 92 

VII. Weapons and Gunpowder 108 

VIII. Astronomical Discoveries and Inventions 127 

IX. The Cotton-gin 138 

X. Anaesthetics 147 

XL Steel and Rubber 154 

XI I. Stenography and the Typewriter 104 

XIII. The Friction Match 109 

XIV. Photography 177 

XV. Clocks 182 

XVI. Some Machines 188 

The Sewing Machine 188 

The Reaper 192 

Spinning and Weaving Machines 197 

XVII. Aeronautics 203 



GREAT 
INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

CHAPTER I 
INTRODUCTION 

Tens of thousands of years ago, when the world 
was even then old, primitive man came into exis- 
tence. The first men lived in the branches of trees 
or in their hollow trunks, and sometimes in caves. 
For food they chased horses or caught fish from 
the streams along whose shores they Hved. If they 
had clothing, it was the skins of wild beasts. Life 
was simple, slow, and crude. There w^ere no cities, 
books, railroads, clocks, newspapers, schools, churches, 
judges, teachers, automobiles, or elections. Man Hved 
with other animals and was little superior to them. 
These primitive men are called cave-dwellers. 

A resident of modern New York sits down to a 
breakfast gathered from distant parts of the earth. 
He spreads out before him his daily newspaper, 
which tells him what has happened during the last 
twenty-four hours all over the world. Telegrai)h 
wires and ocean cables have flashed these events 
across thousands of miles into the newspaper offices 
and there great })rinting presses have recorded them 
upon paper. After breakfast he gets into an electric 

7 



8 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

street car or automobile and is carried through miles 
of space in a very short time to a great steel building 
hundreds of feet liigh. He steps into an electric 
elevator and is whirled rapidly up to his office on 
the twentieth floor. The postman brings a package 
of letters which fast-fiying mail trains have brought 
him during the night from far-away places. He 
reads them and then speaks rapidly to a young 
woman who makes some crooked marks on paper. 
After running her fingers rapidly over the keyboard 
of a little machine, she hands him type-written 
replies to the letters he has received. A boy brings 
him a little yellow envelope. In it he finds a message 
from Seattle or London or Hong Kong or Buenos 
Ayres sent only a few moments ago. He wishes 
to talk with a business associate in Boston or St. 
Louis. Still sitting at his desk, he applies a small 
tube to his ear and speaks to the man as distinctly 
and as instantaneously as if he were in the next room. 
He finds it important to be in Chicago. After luncheon, 
he boards a train equipped with the conveniences 
of his own home, sleeps there comfortably, and flies 
through the thousand miles of distance in time to 
have breakfast in Chicago the next morning. 

What is the difference between the life of the cave- 
dweller and the life of the modern New Yorker? We 
call it civilization. It is not at one bound or at one 
thousand that we pass from the primitive cave to 
New York City. Civilization is the accumulation of 



INTRODUCTION 9 

centuries of achievement.. It is builded, in the lan- 
guage of Isaiah, ''hne upon Hne, hue upon hue; here 
a httle, and there a httle/' 

Different nations have accompHshed different things 
and have scattered the seeds of these accompHshments 
among other nations. Certain individuals have 
seen farther in certain directions than their fellows 
and have contributed to civilization the results of 
their vision. Whoever has added to the safety, 
the happiness, the power, or the convenience of 
society; whoever discovers a star or a microbe; 
whoever paints a pictui^e or plants a tree, builds 
a bridge or fights a righteous battle; whoever makes 
two ears of corn grow where there grew but one 
before; whoever lets the light shine in upon a 
darkened street or a darkened spirit is an agent of 
civiHzation. 

The history of civilization is largely a history of 
man's struggle against the forces of nature and of his 
\dctory over them. Nature is always saying to man, 
^'Thou shalt not''; and man is always replying, ''I 
will." If diseases lurk in air and water, cures are 
ready in the mind of man. Nature shoves men apart 
with lofty mountains; but man drives liis iron horse 
over the mountains or through them. Vast oceans 
roll and mighty winds blow between continents; 
but steam laughs at stormy seas. The moon's light 
is not sufficient for man's ))urposes and he makes a 
brighter one. ^^llen winter blows his icy l)reath. 



10 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

man warms himself with coal and fire. The South 
pours down upon him her scorching summer; but he 
has learned how to freeze w^ater into ice. Time and 
space conspire together for human isolation; man 
conjures with electricity and with it destroys both. 
The stars seek to hide their secrets behind immeasurable 
distances; but an Italian gives man a glass that brings 
the heavens closer before his vision. History tries to 
conceal itself in the rubbish of ages; but with ink man 
preserves the past. His asylums, hospitals, churches, 
schools, libraries, and universities are lights along the 
shore guiding the human race in its voyage down 
the ever widening stream of growth and possibility. 

The centuries do not yield to man equal advance- 
ment. Some are very fertile; others are almost, if 
not quite, barren. The entire period of a thousand 
years stretching from the fall of Rome to the discovery 
of America was as sterile as a heath. On the other 
hand, the nineteenth century was the greatest in 
history in point of human progress, especially in the 
field of inventions. It alone gave to man far more 
of civihzation than the whole ten centuries before the 
discovery of America or indeed any other period of 
a thousand years. One hundred years ago there was 
not a mile of railroad, ocean cable, or telegraph wire 
in the world; not a telephone, automobile, electric 
light, or typewriter. The people were then deriding 
the new-born idea of the steamboat, and wireless 
telegraphy had not been dreamed of. 



IXTRODUCTIOX 11 

Even up to the beginning of the Revolutionary 
War, less than one hundred fifty years ago, no man in 
America had ever seen an envelope, a match, a 
stove, a piece of coal, a daily newspaper, a sewing 
machine, a reaper, a drill, a mowing machine, ether, 
chloroform, galvanized iron, India rub]3er, or steam- 
driven machinery. We who are alive to-day are 
fortunate more than any other generation thus far 
in the world's population. 

'^ We are living, we are dwelling 

In a grand and awful time; 
In an age on ages telling — 

To be living is sublime. '^ 

The horse and the dog of to-day are not very different 
from the horses and the dogs of a thousand years ago. 
From the beginning they have done about all they 
can ever do. Not so with man. He is a progressive 
animal. He is always reaching outward and upw^ard 
for broader and higher things. Tennyson sings, 

''For I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose 

runs, 
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process 

of the suns.'^ 

The difference between the lives of the primitive 
cave-dweller and the modern American is uns{)eakably 
vast. Rut looking far down the vista of futm*e ages, 
who shall say that the fortieth century may not as 
far surpass the twentieth as the twentieth does the 



12 IXVEXTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

sleepy dawn of man-s existence on the earth? We 
are packing more of hfe into a day than our ancestors 
could put into a month. And the hours of the centuries 
to come hold a fuller experience than our days. 

Thomas Carlyle calls man a ^'tool-using animal.^' 
Throughout all time man has made and used tools. 
These tools are the best measure of his ci\iHzation. 
According to the material out of which they have been 
made, man's progress has been divided into epochs 
or ages. 

Primitive man made a few^ implements of bone, 
horn, and stone. They w^ere few and crude. This 
period is called the Stone Age. During it men dwelt 
in caves or huts, dressed themselves in skins, and 
lived by catching fish, chasing wdld animals, and gather- 
ing wild fruits. By and by man learned how to make 
tools out of bronze, an alloy composed of copper and 
tin. These bronze implements were more numerous 
and more efficient than the stone tools and gave man 
a higher degree of power and workmanship. With 
them he cut down trees or carved stone for his dwelHngs 
and acquired generally a higher order of life. This 
era is named the Bronze Age. Finally the use of iron 
w^as discovered. This metal afforded many tools 
that could not be made of stone or bronze — tools 
that were much stronger and more efficient. Man 
became correspondingly more powerful and his life 
more complex. The period during wliich iron was 
used is called the Iron Age. 



IXTRODUCTIOX 13 

Invention is the making of some new thing not 
previously existing. Discovery is the fincHng of some- 
thing ah'eady in existence but not known before. 
There was no electric telegraph until Samuel Morse 
made or invented it; America has always existed, 
but was not known until Chiistopher Columbus found 
or discovered it. 

Among all the builders of civihzation, not the least 
are the inventors and discoverers. High up on the 
page of those who have made the world great will 
always stand the names of Gutenberg or Coster, 
Watt, Stephenson, Morse, Edison, Fulton, GaHleo, 
Newton, Columbus, Morton, Bell, Marconi, and others 
who have invented new machines and discovered 
new processes for making life more happy, safe, and 
powerful. 

Regarding the influence of inventions upon 
civilization, Lord Sahsbury says: '^The inventors 
and even the first users of the great discoveries 
in applied science had never realized what in- 
fluence their work was to have upon industry, 
politics, society, and even religion. The discovery 
of gunpowder simply annihilated feudalism, thus 
effecting an entire change in the structure of govern- 
ment in Europe. As to the discovery of printing, 
it not only made religious revolutions possible, but 
was the basis on which modern democratic forms of gov- 
ernment rested. Tlu^ steam engine not only changed 
all forms of industry and the conditions under which 



14 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

industries were prosecuted, but it made practically 
contiguous the most distant parts of the world, reduc- 
ing its vastness to a relatively contracted area. And 
now the introduction of electricity as a form of force 
seems destined, as its development proceeds, to bring 
about results quite as important in their way, though 
but yet dimly seen by the most far-sighted/' 

Secretary Seward pays this tribute to invention: 
''The exercise of the inventive faculty is the nearest 
akin to the Creator of any faculty possessed by the 
human mind; for while it does not create in the sense 
that the Creator did, yet it is the nearest approach 
to it of anything known to man/' 

And Lord Bacon tells us: ''The introduction of 
new inventions seemeth to be the very chief of all 
human actions. The benefits of new inventions may 
extend to all mankind universally; while the good 
of political achievements can respect but some particu- 
lar cantons of men; these latter do not endure above 
a few ages, the former forever. Inventions make 
all men happy, without injury to any one single person. 
Furthermore, they are, as it were, new creations, and 
imitations of God's own works." 



CHAPTER II 
THE PRINTING PRESS 

" Blessings be on the head of Cadmus, the Phoenicians, 
or whoever it is, that first invented books." 

Thomas Carlyle. 

^^ Except a living man/^ says Charles Kingsley, 
''there is nothing more wonderful than a book — a 
message to us from the dead — from human souls 
whom we never saw, who Hved perhaps thousands of 
miles away; and yet these, on those httle sheets of 
paper, speak to us, amuse us, vivify us, teach us, 
comfort us, open their hearts to us as brothers. We 
ought to reverence books, to look at them as useful 
and mighty things/' Milton calls a good book ''the 
precious Hfe blood of a master spirit, embalmed and 
treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life/' Cicero 
likens a room without books to a body without a soul. 
Ruskin says, "Bread of flour is good; but there is 
bread, sweet as honey, if we would eat it, in a good 
l)Ook." And Thomas Carlyle exclaims: "Wondrous, 
indeed, is the virtue of a true book! thou who 
art able to write a book, which once in two centuries 
or oftener there is a man gifted to do, envy not him 
whom they name city-builder, and inexpressibly 
pity him whom they name concjueror or city-burner!'' 

15 



16 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

Is it not wonderful that a record of all the world 
has thought and said and felt and done can be deposited 
in a corner of my room, and that there I may sit and 
commune with the master spirits of all the centuries? 
Socrates, Plato, Homer, Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Paul, 
David, Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Goethe, Dante, 
Shakespeare, Hugo, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Carlyle, 
and Emerson, all in one room at the same time! 

Great as books are, however, the w^orld has not 
long had them. For many generations after man's 
advent, he had no language. He communicated with 
his fellows by means of gestures or gave vent to his 
feehngs in rude grunts or cries, much as the lower 
animals do now. But God gave to man something 
He did not bestow upon the other animals — the power 
of articulate speech. Certain sounds came to represent 
certain ideas and a kind of oral language grew up. 
This became more and more highly developed as time 
went by. For centuries the traditions, stories, and 
songs of men were handed down orally from father 
to son and were preserved only in the memory. The 
poems of Homer, the great Greek bard, were recited 
by readers to large audiences, some of them numbering 
probably twenty thousand. 

By and by men felt the need of preserving their 
thoughts in some more permanent way than by 
memory, and there grew up a rude system of writing. 
At first pictures or rude imitations of objects were 
used; a circle or a disc might represent the sun, and a 



THE PRIXTIXG PRESS 17 

crescent the moon. The idea of a tree was denoted 
by the picture of a tree. The early Indians of North 
America were among the peoples who used a system 
of picture writing. In process of time, as men grew 
in knowledge and culture, certain fixed signs began 
to denote certain sounds, and a phonetic system of 
writing was developed. 

For the first phonetic alphabet it is generally sup- 
posed that we are indebted to the Phoenicians, an 
active, commercial people, who lived along the eastern 
shore of the Mediterranean Sea. They were a maritime 
nation and scattered their alphabet wherever they 
sailed, so that some kind of phonetic alphabet finally 
existed throughout the civiHzed world. 

Books among the ancients were very different 
from the books of the present. Paper has not been 
known long, nor, indeed, has the art of printing. When 
man began to preserve his thoughts and deeds in more 
permanent form than in the memory, various substances 
were used to write upon. Josephus, an historian of 
the Jews, mentions two columns, one of stone and the 
other of brick, upon which the children of Seth wrote ac- 
counts of their inventions and astronomical discoveries. 
Tablets of lead containing the works of Hesiod, a 
Greek writer, were deposited in the temple of the 
Muses in Bocotia. According to the Bible, the ten 
commandments which the Lord gave to Moses on 
Mount Sinai for the children of Israel were engraved 
on two tablets of stone; and the laws of Solon, the 



18 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

great Grecian law-giver, were carved on planks of 
wood. 

Sixty centuries ago on the banks of the Nile in north- 
ern Africa flourished the civilization of the Egyptians. 
There grew abundantly in Egypt a marsh reed called 
the papyrus. From the name of this plant is derived 
our word "paper. The Egyptians made their books 
from the papyrus plant. With a sharp instrument 
they cut lengthwise strips through the stalk, put these 
strips together edge to edge, and on them at right 
angles, placed another layer of shorter strips. The 
two layers were then moistened with Nile water, 
pressed together, and left to dry. A leaf of writing 
material was thus produced. Any roughness on the 
surface of the sheet was pohshed away with some 
smooth instrument. A number of leaves were then 
glued together so as to form a long piece of the material. 
The Egyptians took reeds, dipped them in gum water 
colored with charcoal or with a kind of resinous soot, 
and wrote on the long papyrus strip. Sometimes 
ink was made of the cuttle fish or from lees of wine. 
After the papyrus had been written upon, it was rolled 
up and became an Egyptian book. Papyrus was 
used for writing material not only by the Egyptians 
but by the Greeks and the Romans also, and for a long 
time it was the chief substance used for writing through- 
out the civiHzed world. It continued in use to a greater 
or less extent till about the seventh century after 
Christ. 



TIIK PRIXTIXC; PRESS 19 

On the plains of Asia lived tlio Chaldeans, whose 
civiUzation was about as old as tluit of the KgTi)tians. 
But their books were very different. Men use for 
their purposes the things that are close at hand. In 
Egypt the papyrus plant was utihzed for making l)ooks. 
In Chaldea, instead of tliis marsh reed, there wei'e 
great stores of clay and of this material the ancient 
Chaldeans, and the Babylonians and the Assyrians 
who followed them, made their books. The Chaldeans 
took bricks or masses of smooth clay and, wdiile they 
w^ere yet soft, made impressions on them with a metal 
stiletto shaped at the end like the side of a wedge. In 
Latin the word for wedge is cuneus. Hence this old 
writing of the Chaldeans is called cuneiform or wedge- 
shaped. Some of these wedge-shaped impressions 
stood for whole words, others for syllables. After the 
clay tablets had been written upon, they w^ere burned 
or dried hard in the sun. A Chaldean book was thus 
made very durable and lasted for ages. During recent 
years many of them have been dug up in ancient 
Babylonia and deciphered. They consist of gram- 
mars, dictionaries, religious books and hymns, laws, 
public documents, and records of private business 
transactions. 

The early Greeks and Romans used for their l)ooks 
tablets of ivory or metal or, more commonly, tablets 
of wood taken from the beech or fir tree. The inner 
sides of these tablets w^ere coated with wax. On this 
wax coating the letters were traced with a pointed 



20 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

metallic pen or stiletto called the stylus. Our English 
word style, as used in rhetoric, comes from the name of 
this instrument. The other end of the stylus was used 
for erasing. Two of these waxed tablets, joined at the 
edges by wire hinges, were the earliest specimens of 
bookbinding. Wax tablets of this kind continued in 
partial use in Europe through the Middle Ages. Later 
the leaves of the palm tree were used; then the inner 
bark of the lime, ash, maple, or elm. 

The next material that came into general use for 
writing purposes was parchment. This was made 
from the skins of animals, particularly sheep or lambs. 
Next came vellum, the prepared skin of the calf. 
Parchment and vellum were written upon with a 
metallic pen. As these substances were very costly, 
sometimes one book was written over another on the 
sam^e piece of parchment or vellum. Of course this 
made the reading of the manuscript very difficult. 

About the end of the ninth century or the beginning 
of the tenth, after Christ, parchment and vellum as 
material for books gave way to paper. At first paper 
was made of cotton, but during the twelfth century 
it was produced from linen. It is not known who 
invented hnen paper, but its introduction gave the 
first great impulse to book making. 

In the early Greek books the lines ran in opposite 
directions alternately. That is, there would be a Hne 
from left to right across the page, and then the next 
iower line would begin at the right and run towards 



THE PRINTING PRESS 21 

the left. Among some of the Orientals the lines ran 
from right to left. In the old Chinese books the lines 
were vertical down the page, as they are still. Among 
Western and Northern peoples the lines ran from left 
to right as in our modern books. 

The old civiHzations of Egypt and Babylonia, in 
which the art of book-making originated, sprang up, 
flourished, and decayed, burying from the sight of men 
precious secrets in the arts and sciences. The beautiful 
flower of Greek culture budded, bloomed, and withered. 
Passing on from east to west, civihzation knocked at 
the door of Rome and awakened there such military 
and legal genius as the world had not yet seen. Then 
a horde of wild barbarians poured over the mountains 
of northern Italy and overthrew the mighty city on the 
Tiber. The sun of civilization was setting, at least for 
a time. Night was coming on, the night of the Dark 
Ages, a night without a star of human thought or 
achievement, a night full of the noxious vapors of 
ignorance and superstition. 

About the beginning of the fifteenth century after 
Christ there came over the world a great intellectual 
awakening. The human intellect began to awake, to 
stretch itself, to go forth and conquer. One of the 
first signs and causes of this intellectual awakening was 
an event that happened at Mainz in Germany or at 
Haarlem in Holland, or possibly in both places at the 
same time. Of all the events that have made for 
civilization and have influenced the progress of the 



22 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

human race, tliis event at Haarlem or Mainz is the most 
important. It is the invention of printing. Before 
tills time, ever since man began to record his thoughts, 
whether on plank, stone, or papyrus, on bark of tree, 
skin of animal, or tablet of wax or paper, every letter 
was made by hand. The process was necessarily slow, 

p^cs nHm anti itix^ uammoxsm^ o£ GikCbixd D(e^ 

Im^clantiftttl^twart/latci^tnaJtwtatJJtftmo^ 
neOtertnto # eitmxt^tBti^utS}j^9Xit>f)t(!l^ 

An Advertisement of Caxton, the First Printer in England 

books were rare and costly, and only the few could have 
them. But with the advent of a process that would 
multiply books and make them cheap, learning was 
made accessible to the multitude. The clang of the 
first printing press was the death knell of ignorance 
and tyranny. 

Before the invention of printing with movable, metal 
types, a kind of block printing was used. The words 
or letters were carved on a block of wood; the block 
was apphed to paper, silk, cloth, or vellum, and thus 
impressions were made. 

It has always been a matter of dispute as to who 
invented printing. It is fairly clear that printing, 
both with blocks and with movable types, was practised 
in China and Japan long before it was in Europe. There 



Tin-: PRINTING PRESS 23 

is a tradition that as far back as 175 A. D. riiinosc classics 
were cut ui)on tablets of stone, that these tablets were 
placed outside the university, and that impressions 
were made from them. However, wo are not indelj>led 
to Gliina or Japan for the art of printing. The real 
invention of printing, so far as the civilized world is 
concerned, occurred in Europe in the latter part of the 
fifteenth century. The inventor is often said to be 
Johann Gutenberg, of Mainz, Germany. Another 
strong claimant for this honor is Lourens Janszoon 
Coster, who lived at Haarlem, in Holland. 

Concerning the hves of Coster and Gutenberg little 
is known. Coster was born at Haarlem, Holland, 
about 1370 A.D. He was a member of the Haarlem 
Council, assessor and treasurer. He probably perished 
in the plague that visited Haarlem in 1439-40. Guten- 
berg was born of noble parents at Mainz, Germany, 
in 1410. He had an active mind and gave attention 
to the manufacture of money, the polishing of stones, 
and the making of looking-glasses, besides his efforts 
in printing. He died in February, 14G8, poor, childless, 
and almost friendless. 

The first printed book, so far as can be determined, 
was made at Mainz, Germany, and bears the date of 
1454 A.D. From certain legal records it is sujiposed 
that Gutenberg was the maker of this l)()()k and the in- 
ventor of printing. On the other hand, there is a story 
that Coster, while walking in the woods one autumn 
afternoon, chanced to make for his little grandchild 



24 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

some letters from the bark of a tree; that these letters 
suggested to him the idea of metalHc types; and that 
he, and not Gutenberg, was the inventor of printing. 
As the story goes, a slave stole Coster's types and ran 
away with them from Haarlem to Mainz; and the books 
which, it is supposed, were made at the latter place 
came really from Coster's types, not Gutenberg's. 
The fact cannot be known. It has hopelessly gone 
with the years. 

This first book, which was printed in two different 
editions, consisted of certain letters written by Pope 
Nicholas V in behalf of the kingdom of Cyprus. By 
about 1477 A.D. printing had extended from Mainz 
to all the chief towns of Germany, Italy, Switzerland, 
France, the Netherlands, Spain, and England. By the 
beginning of the sixteenth century it had spread to all 
the principal places of Europe. 

In the type of the early books the various letter forms 
were not fixed as they are in modern books, but the 
type for each book was made as much as possible like 
the writing of the original manuscript. As printers 
moved from place to place introducing their art, it 
seems that not one carried away the types of his master 
but each made his own anew. Type was originally 
made and set up by hand, piece by piece, so that even 
the production of printed books was very slow. Va- 
rious mechanical de\ices have been invented from time 
to time, (luickening and cheapening the making of 
books and other printed matter, so that to-day 



THE raiXTIXC PRESS 



25 



printers turn out books and papers in large quantities 
in an amazingly short time. 

The first newspaper in the world is believed to have 
been the Frankfurter Journal, published about 1G15 




The Printing Press in Bostox\ at Which Franklin Worked 

A.D. at Frankfort-on-the-Main, in Germany. But of 
this there is no certainty. Newspapers, however, 
had their beginnings in Germany and Italy some time 
hi the latter part of the sixteenth or the first part of 
the seventeenth century. It is behoved that the 



26 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

Weekly News, started in London in 1G22, was the first 
newspaper published in England. In the United 
States there was a printing press attached to Harvard 
College^ at Cambridge, Massachusetts, as early as 
1638, two years after the college was founded, and only 
six years after the settlement of Boston. With this 
one exception, for a long time there were no printing 
presses in the colonies. A newspaper called Publick 
Occurrences was started in Boston in 1690, but it was 
soon afterward suppressed by the British government. 
The first permanent newspaper in America was the 
Boston News Letter ^ estabhshed at Boston in 1704. 

One of the greatest wonders and triumphs of civiHza- 
tion is the great modern daily new^spaper. It occupies 
a giant '' sky-scraper '' as its home, employs a small 
army of workmen, spends vast sums of money in ob- 
taining and printing the news, and is sold for a cent 
per copy. The head of a newspaper staff is the editor- 
in-chief. He is in a general way responsible to the 
publishers for the paper. Next in command is the 
managing editor who has charge of the actual work of 
pubhcation. Subordinate to the managing editor are 
other editors who have control over various depart- 
ments of the paper. The telegraph editor looks after 
news sent by telegraph; the city editor has charge of hap- 
penings in the city of pubhcation; the exchange editor 
clips items from other papers; the religious editor 
attends to affairs of religion; the sporting editor collects 
and arranges news of sports and games; the commercial 



THE PRINTING PRESS 27 

editor works with the markets and matters of commerce 
and business; the society editor gives attention to 
social functions; and the dramatic editor takes note of 
the theaters. The city editor commands a company 
of perhaps half a hundred reporters, who are sent 
scurrying daily throughout the city to bring in the news 
from its various sources. One goes to the ball game, 
another to a funeral, another to the courts, another to 
a hotel to interview some prominent person, and still 
another goes to a political convention. There are also 
photographers, illustrators, and editorial writers. 

At the close of the day, special correspondents and 
representatives of press associations in every nook and 
corner of the earth send the world's news for the day by 
telegraph and ocean cable direct into the newspaper of- 
fice. A king has died; a battle has been fought; storm, 
earthquake, or fu-e has destroyed a city; or there has 
been some achievement in science or art. The local 
reporters have brought in the news of the city. After 
all has been quickly written, examined, and edited, 
the reports are sent to the composing room to be put 
into type. 

The foreman of the composing room distributes the 
manuscript, called copy, among skilled operators, who 
by means of type-setting machines put it into type. 
Impressions are then made from this type on strips of 
paper. These impressions are called proofs. Proof 
readers compare these proofs with the original copy for 
the purpose of correcting errors. After the correction 



2cS INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

of errors the columns of type, called galleys, are locked 
up in a form which is the size of a page. The form is 
next sent to the stereotyping room, where an exact 
reproduction is made in metal. The metal plates are 
put in place on the presses. The machinery is started. 
Tons of white paper are fed into the presses at one end. 
Out at another in an instant comes the finished news- 
paper, printed, cut, and folded. These papers are 
counted and delivered automatically to the maihng 
room, at the rate of about 100,000 copies in an hour, 
for the improved, modern press. After their arrival at 
the maihng room, papers that are for out-of-town 
subscribers are wTapped in packages, addressed, and 
carried in express wagons to fast mail trains, which 
carry this record of what man did the previous day 
to readers hundreds of miles away. 

This afternoon at five o'clock a prominent man dies 
suddenly in San Francisco. To-night at midnight the 
newspapers of St. Louis, Chicago, and New York will 
come from the press wdth his picture and a long sketch 
of his hfe. How^ is this possible in so short a time? 
The papers have on file, arranged in alphabetical order, 
photographs of prominent persons and places and 
biographical sketches of great men, kept up to date. 
Whenever any noted person, place, or thing is made 
conspicuous by any event, the picture and sketch are 
taken from the files and used. 

It is the electric telegraph that makes possible the 
modern daily newspaper. Before its invention, papers 



THE PRINTING PRESS 29 

resorted to various devices for transmitting news. 
For some years messengers riding ponic^s brought news 
from Washington to the New York papers. These 
papers also utihzed small, swift-sailing vessels to meet 
incoming ships bearing news from foreign countries. 
A recent bulletin on printing and publishing issued 
by the Census Bureau of the United States government 
show^ed that there were in the United States 21,394 
newspapers and periodicals, printed in twenty-seven 
different languages. Of these, 2,452 were daily; 
15,046 weekly; 2,500 monthly; 353 quarterly; 58 tri- 
weekly; 645 semi- weekly; and 340 of all other kinds. 
20,184 of these papers were English; 619 German; 
158 Scandinavian; 58 Itahan; 41 French; 44 Bohemian; 
31 Spanish; 18 Hebrew; 21 Dutch; 7 Chinese; 9 Japan- 
ese; 5 Greek; 46 PoHsh; 5 Hungarian; 3 Arabic; and 
two each in the Welsh, S3a'ian and Gaelic languages. 
The capital invested in printing and publishing in the 
United States was a little more than $385,000,000. It 
would take one person twelve hours a day every day 
for six thousand years, or from the beginnings of 
Egyptian and Babylonian civiHzation to the dawn of 
the twentieth century, to read at an average rate all 
the papers published in the United States during a 
single year. 



CHAPTER III 
THE STEAM ENGINE 

THE SONG OF STEAM 
By George Washington Cutter 

Harness me down with your iron bands; 

Be sure of your curb and rein; 
For I scorn the power of your puny hands, 

As the tempest scorns a chain. 
How I laughed as I lay concealed from sight 

For many a countless hour, 
At the childish boast of human might, 

And the pride of human power. 

When I saw an army upon the land, 

A navy upon the seas, 
Creeping along, a snail-like band. 

Or waiting the wayward breeze; 
When I marked the peasant faintly reel 

With the toil which he daily bore. 
As he feebly turned the tardy wheel, 

Or tugged at the weary oar; 

When I measured the panting courser^s 
speed. 
The flight of the courier dove. 
As they bore the law a king decreed. 
Or the lines of impatient love, — 
30 



THE STEAM ENGINE 31 

I could not but think how the world would 
feel, 

As these were outstripped afar, 
When I should be bound to the rushing keel, 

Or chained to the flying car; 



Ha, ha! they found me out at last; 

They invited me forth at length; 
And I rushed to my throne with a thunder- 
blast, 

And I laughed in my iron strength. 
Oh, then ye saw^ a wondrous change 

On the earth and the ocean wide, 
Where now my fiery armies range, 

Nor wait for wind and tide. 



Hurrah! hurrah! the waters o^er; 

The mountain's steep decline; 
Time — space — have yielded to my power; 

The world — the world is mine! 
The rivers the sun hath earliest blest, 

Or those where his beams decline ; 
The giant streams of the queenly West, 

And the Orient floods divine. 
The ocean pales where'er I sweep, 

I in my strength rejoice; 
And the monsters of the briny deep 

Cower, trembling, at my voice. 
I carry the wealth and the lord of earth, 

The thoughts of his god-like mind; 
The wind lags after my going forth, 

The lightning is left behind. 



32 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

In the darksome depths of the fathomless 
mine 

My tireless arm doth play, 
Where the rocks never saw the sun decline, 

Or the dawn of the glorious day. 
I bring earth's glittering jewels up 

From the hidden caves below, 
And I make the fountain's granite cup 

With a crystal gush overflow. 
I blow the bellows, I forge the steel. 

In all the shops of trade; 
I hammer the ore, and turn the wheel. 

Where my arms of strength are made; 
I manage the furnace, the mill, the mint; 

I carry, I spin, I weave; 
And all my doings I put into print 

On every Saturday eve. 

I've no muscle to weary, no breast to decay, 

No bones to be '^laid on the shelf," 
And soon I intend you may "go and play," 

While I manage this world myself. 
But harness me down with your iron bands, 

Be sure of your curb and rein ; 
For I scorn the power of your puny hands. 

As the tempest scorns a chain! 



The most powerful and important mass of matter on 
the earth is the steam engine. It is the throbbing 
heart of civiHzation, even as the printing press is its 
brain. It would be difficult for man to compute his 
debt to steam. Upon it he relies for food, clothing, 



THE STEAM EXGIXE 33 

and shelter, tlie three necessitic^s for wliicli tlu^ race has 
always striven; and without it he could have scimtely 
any of life's comforts and luxuries. Steam is the 
mistress of commerce, manufacturing, and minijig, 
and the servant of agriculture. Steam gives employ- 
ment to millions of men. It plants cities and townf= in 
waste places. It enables man to leave the little valley 
or hillside where his fathers livedo and makes of him a 
citizen of the world. It lessens the i)ower of time 
and space, and makes neighbors of ocean-dividcnl 
continents. 

It would not be easy for men living in the twentie^th 
century to imagine a society uninfluenced by the use 
of steam; but nearly all of man's life on the ea^tli 
has been passed without its help. Fire and water, the 
two productive factors of steam, have ahvays existed; 
but it was not until a few score of years ago that man 
learned to put them together successfully, and to pro- 
duce the greatest force known to civilization. In the 
few years since its discovery it has spread to every nook 
and corner of civilization. Suppose you could ascend 
to some great height whence you could see working at 
one time all the steam driven machinery in the world. 
What a sight it would be! What if the noise from all 
this machinery — the screech of the speeding locomotive, 
the hum and roar of factory and mill, the hoarse yell 
of ships, and the puffing of mine-engines — should 
reach your ear at once? What a sound it would be! 

The idea of using steam for driving stationary 



34 . INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

machinery originated in the early centuries. This 
was the first use to which steam was put. For a long 
time no one seems to have thought of using it for 
transportation purposes. As far back as 130 B.C., we 
find mention of ^'heat engines/^ which employed 
steam as their motive power, and were used for organ 
blowing, the turning of spits, and like purposes. But 
from this early date till the seventeenth century 
practically no progress was made in the use of steam. 
Though men had experimented with steam up to this 
time with more or less success, the world is chiefly 
indebted for the developed type of the steam engine to 
James Watt and George Stephenson. 

Watt was born in Greenock, Scotland, January 19, 
1736. He was a poor boy and early in Hfe he was 
thrown upon his own resources. During his youth he 
struggled against ill health; for days at a time he was 
prostrated with severe headaches. But he was bright, 
determined, and had a genial disposition that made 
him many friends. When he was twenty-one years 
old, he secured a position as maker of scientific in- 
struments for the university in Glasgow. He began 
discussing with some scientific friends at the university 
the possibihty of improving the steam engine, which 
at that time was used only for pumping water, chiefly 
in the drainage of mines. He entered upon a scientific 
study of the properties of steam and tried to devise 
means for making the steam engine more useful. One 
Sunday afternoon early in 17G5, while walking in 



THE STEAM ENGINE 35 

Glasgow, the idea ho had studied so long to evolve 
suddenly flashed into his mind. Without delay Watt 
put his plan to the test and found that it worked. 

For a long time, owing to a lack of money, he had 
difficulty in estabhshing the merits of his improve- 
ments. Finally he formed a partnership with Matthew 
Boulton, a wealthy and energetic man who lived at 
Birmingham, England. They began the manufacture 
of steam engines at Birmingham, under the firm name 
of Boulton and Watt. This partnership was very 
successful. Watt suppHed the inventions; Boulton 
furnished the money and attended to the business. 

Before the time of Watt, the steam engine was ex- 
clusively a steam pump — slow, cumbrous, wasteful 
of fuel, and very little used. Watt made it a quick, 
powerful, and efficient engine, requiring only a fourth 
as much fuel as before. Under his fu*st patent the 
engine was still used only as a steam pump; but his 
later improvements adapted it for driving stationary 
machinery of all kinds and, save in a few respects, left 
it essentially what it is to-day. Prior to Watt's inven- 
tions, the mines of Great Britain were far from tln-iv- 
ing. Many were even on the point of being abandoned, 
through the difficulty of removing the large quantities 
of water that collected in them. His improvements 
made it possible to remove this water at a moderate 
cost, and this gave many of the mines a new lease of 
life. The commercial success of his engine was soon 
fully estabhshed. 



36 IXVEXTIOXS AND DISCOVERIES 

Watt paid practically no attention to the use of 
steam for purposes of transportation. In one of his 
patents he described a steam locomotive; but he offered 
little encouragement when his chief assistant, Murdoch, 
who was the inventor of gas lighting, made experiments 
with steam for locomotion. The notion then was to 
use a steam carriage on ordinary roads. Railroads 
had not been thought of. When the idea of using 
steam on railways began to take shape in the later 
days of Watt, he refused to encourage the plan. It 
is said that he even put a clause in a lease of his house, 
providing that no steam carriage should ever approach 
it under any pretext whatever. 

Besides developing the steam engine. Watt made 
other inventions, including a press for copying letters. 
He also probably discovered the chemical composition 
of water. He died at Heathfield, England, on the 
nineteenth of August, 1819. 

It is denied many men to see the magnitude of their 
achievements. Moses died on Pisgah, in sight of the 
''Promised Land, '' toward which for forty years he had 
led the children of Israel through the wilderness. Wolfe 
gave up his hfe on the plains of Quebec just as the first 
shouts of the routed French greeted his ears. Columbus 
was sent home in chains from the America he had dis- 
covered, not dreaming he had given to civiHzation an- 
other world. Lincoln's eyes were closed forever at the 
very dawn of peace, after he had watched in patience 
through the long and fearful night ot the Civil War. 



THE STEAM ENGINE 37 

It never appeared to James Watt that the idea which 
flashed into his mind that Sunday afternoon while he 
was walking in the streets of Glasgow, would transform 
human hfe; that hke a mighty multiplier it would in- 
crease the product of man's power and give him domin- 
ion, not over the beasts of the field and the fowls of the 
air, but over tide and wind, space and time. 

Victor Hugo calls locomotives ^Hhese giant cb'aft 
horses of civihzation/' But man never harnessed these 
wonderful iron animals until the time of George Stephen- 
son, less than a hundred years ago. 

Stephenson was born at AVylam, near Newcastle, 
England, June 9, 1781. His father was a fireman of 
a coal-mine engine at that place. In boyhood George 
was a cowherd, but he spent his spare time making clay 
models of engines and other objects of a mechanical 
nature. When he was fourteen years old, he became 
assistant to his father in fh-ing the engine at the colliery, 
and three years later he was advanced to engine driving. 
At this time he could not even read; but, stimulated by 
a strong desire to know more of the engines made by 
Boulton and Watt, he began in his eighteenth year to 
attend a night school. He learned rapidly. During 
most of this time he studied various experiments with 
a view to making a successful steam locomotive. 

Modern railways had their origin in roads called 
tramways, which were used for hauling coal from the 
mines of England to the sea. At first ordinary dirt 
roads w^ere used for tliis purpose; but as the h(»avy 



38 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

traffic wore these roads away, it become the practice to 
place planks or timbers at the bottoms of the ruts. 
Afterwards wooden rails were laid straight and parallel 
on the level surface. The rails were oak scantlings 
held together with cross timbers of the same material, 
fastened by means of large oak pins. Later strips of 
iron were nailed on the tops of the wooden rails. Over 
these rails, bulky, four-wheeled carts loaded with coal 
were pulled by horses. 

Stephenson made what he called a traveling engine for 
the tramways leading from the mines where he worked 
to the sea, nine miles distant. He named his engine 
''My Lord/' On July 25, 1814, he made a successful 
trial trip with it. 

The successful use of steam in hauling coal from the 
mines led thoughtful persons to consider its use for 
carrying merchandise and passengers. At this time 
freight was transported inland by means of canals. 
This method was slow; thirty-six hours were required 
for traveling fifty miles. Passengers were conveyed by 
coaches drawn by horses. In 1821 a railroad for the 
transportation of merchandise and passengers was 
opened between Stockton and Darlington in England. 
The line, including three branches, was thirty-eight 
miles long. The plan was to use animal power on this 
road, but George Stephenson secured permission to try 
on it his steam locomotive. 

In September, 1825, the first train passed over the 
road. It consisted of thirty-four cars weighing, all told, 



THE STEAM ENGINE 39 

ninety tons. The train was pulled by Stephenson's 
engine, operated by Stephenson himself, with a sig- 
nalman riding on horseback in advance. The train 
moved off at the rate of ten or twelve miles an hour, 
and on certain parts of the road it reached a speed of 
fifteen miles per hour. The trial was a complete 
success. 

The road had been built chiefly for the transportation 
of freight, but from the first passengers insisted on 
being carried, and in October, 1825, the Company be- 
gan to run a daily passenger coach called the '' Experi- 
ment.^^ This coach carried six persons inside and from 
fifteen to twenty outside. The round trip between 
Stockton and Darlington was made in two hours. A 
fare of one shilling was charged, and each passenger 
was allowed fourteen pounds of baggage free. The 
Stockton and Darlington was the first railway in the 
world over which passengers and freight were hauled 
by steam. 

Stephenson was next employed to help construct a 
railway between Liverpool and Manchester. The most 
eminent engineers of the day predicted that the road 
could not be built. But it was built. On the fifteenth 
of September, 1830, Stephenson made a trial trip over the 
road with an improved locomotive named the '^ Rocket." 
On the trial trip the ^' Rockef made twenty-nine miles 
an hour. This trip firmly proved the possibilities of 
steam as motive power on railways and started the 
modern era of railroad building. Other railways were 



o 



^ 




THE STEAM ENGINE 41 

quickly built and soon they radiated from London to 
nearly every English seaport. 

Stephenson's son, Robert, assisted him in the con- 
struction of the ''Rocket'' and later attained consider- 
able reputation as an engineer. 

It is claimed that George Stephenson was the in- 
ventor of the safety lamp for use in mines, an invention 
usually accredited to Sir Humphry Davy. He was often 
consulted in the building of subsequent railroads, but 
he spent the last years of his life in farming and garden- 
ing at his home at Chesterfield, England, where he died 
August 12, 1848. 

Before the days of railroads in America, freight was 
hauled on canals and passengers rode in stage coaches 
or on horseback. A coach made the trip from Boston 
to New York twice a week and the journey required six 
days. A trip from New York to Philadelphia took two 
days. From Philadelphia to Baltimore the roads were 
good, but south of Baltimore they were bad and even 
dangerous. South of the James River the traveler 
was compelled to make his journey on horseback. A 
coach from Charleston to Savannah was the only 
public conveyance south of the Potomac River. 

In the days of the old colonial stagecoach, if a traveler 
wished to go from Boston to New York, he would have 
to be ready to begin the journey at tlu^ee o'clock in the 
morning. The stage had no glass windows, no door or 
step, and passengers were obliged to climb in at the 



42 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

front. One pair of horses pulled the stage eighteen 
miles, and then they were relieved by another pair. 
At about ten o'clock in the evening, after a day^s jour- 
ney of forty miles, the stage drew up at an inn for the 
night. At three o'clock the next morning, after dressing 
by the light of a horn lantern, the traveler must resume 
his journey. If the roads were bad, he might have to 
alight from the stage and help the driver pull the wheels 
out of the mud. Rivers were crossed on clumsy flat- 
boats. When the streams were swollen with rains or 
filled with floating ice, the passage across was often 
dangerous. The trip from Boston to Philadelphia, 
which would have taken eight days of Washington's 
time, can easily be made now by train in as many 
hours. In these days of the modern railroad, San 
Francisco is nearer in time to New York than Wash- 
ington was scarcely a hundred years ago. 

The first railway in America was built in 1826. It 
connected a granite quarry at Quincy, Massachusetts, 
wdth the town of MiltoA in the same state. It was only 
two or three miles long, and was operated with horses. 
In May, 1829, three English locomotives — the first ever 
seen in America — were unloaded at New York City. 
On August 9 of the same year, one of these engines 
was tried at Honesdale, Pennsylvania. This was the 
first time that a locomotive ever turned a wheel on a 
railway in America. 

A canal which the business men of Philadelphia 
proposed to construct from their city to Pittsburg, in 



THE STEAM ENGINE 43 

order to give them access to the trade centers of the 
West, threatened the commercial prosperity of Balti- 
more. To offset the advantages which this canal would 
give Philadelphia, at a great public meethigin Baltimore 
it was decided to build a railway from Baltimore to 
some point on the Ohio River. The road was named 
the Baltimore and Ohio. In 1830 it was finished from 
Baltimore as far as Ellicott's Mills, a distance of fifteen 
miles. The Baltimore and Ohio was the first railroad 
in the United States built for the express purpose of 
carrying passengers and freight. The original intention 
was to pull cars over this road with horses. But Peter 
Cooper persuaded the railroad officials to try his 
engine ^^Tom Thumb,'' which he had built in 1829. 
The trial was successful, for ''Tom Thumb'' drew a car- 
load of passengers at the rate of fifteen to eighteen miles 
per hour. This engine was the first locomotive built in 
America, and its trial was the first trip ever made by an 
American locomotive. 

The first railroad in the United States constructed 
with the original purpose of using steam as motive 
power was the South Carolina railroad, a line one hun- 
dred thirty-six miles long between Charleston and 
Hamburg. A locomotive built in New York City, 
called the '^ Best Friend," made its first trip over 
this road in November, 1830. It was the first loco- 
motive to run regularly on a railroad in the United 
States. 

Railroad building spread rapidly in America, as it 



44 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

had in England. By 1835 there were twenty-two rail- 
roads in the United States, two of them being west of 
the AlleghenieS; though no road was more than one 
hundred forty miles in length. There was no railroad 
west of the Mississippi River prior to 1853; and in that 
year a line only thirty-eight miles long was built. 
During 1906 alone, 5516 miles of railroad were con- 
structed in the United States. At the end of that year, 
there was a total in the United States of 222,635 miles, 
or nearly enough to reach nine times around the entire 
globe. The United States now has thirty per cent, more 
miles of railway main track than all of Europe, and 
contains two fifths of the railroad mileage of the world. 
The railroads of the United States represent a value of 
about fifteen bilhon dollars, and give employment to a 
milhon and a half persons. 

The Pennsylvania Railroad was originally owned by 
the state. Any one could use it by paying certain 
charges, and each person operating the road furnished his 
own cars, horses, and drivers. There were frequent 
blockades; when two cars going in opposite directions 
met, one had to turn back. If rival shippers came to- 
gether and neither was willing to yield to the other, a 
fight probably settled the rights of precedence. After 
a time steam became the sole motive power, and the 
locomotives were owned by the state. 

The railroad journeys of our grandfathers were very 
different from our own. In their day the rails wore 
wooden beams or stringers laid on horizontal blocks of 



THE STEAM ENGINE 45 

stone. Strips of iron were fastened with spikes to the 
tops of the wooden rails. The cars were small, each 
seating only a few passengers. The locomotive was 
crude. Its greatest speed was about fifteen miles an 
hour. It could not climb a hill, and when a grade was 
reached, the cars had to be pulled up or let down with 
ropes managed by a stationary engine. No cab shel- 
tered the engineer; no brake checked the speed. Some- 
times the spikes fastening the iron strips to the tops of 
the wooden rails worked loose, and these strips curled up 
and penetrated the bottoms of the cars, greatly to the 
annoyance and fright of the traveler. The bridges in 
those days were roofed. The smokestack of the loco- 
motive, being too tall to pass under the roof, was made in 
two joints or sections fastened together with hinges. 
When the train approached a bridge, the top section of 
the stack was lowered. As wood only was used for fuel, 
the stack emitted a shower of sparks, smoke, and hot 
cinders. The passengers coughed and sputtered, and 
covered their eyes, mouth, and noses with handker- 
chiefs. 

The trip from Chicago to New York is about a thou- 
sand miles, over prairie, river, and mountain. Should 
you make the journey between these cities over the 
Pennsylvania Railroad of to-day, there would be little 
danger of conflict because two rival trains might want 
the track at the same time. Nor would you have to 
wait while ropes pulled the train up a grade, for the 
locomotive can chmb the hills. Instead of the old 



46 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

wooden rails with their strips of iron, there is a double 
track of solid steel rails all the way. The landscape 
would fly past you at the rate of a mile a minute, in- 
stead of fifteen miles an hour. 

Let us suppose that you leave Chicago at 2.45 o'clock 
P.M., central time. Before the train starts you could 
telephone to a friend without leaving the car. You 
might sit down, in an elegant dining-car, to a dinner of 
all the deUcacies the market could afford. You might 
occupy your own exclusive compartment in a luxuri- 
ously equipped Pullman car, lit by electric bulbs, or you 
could spend the evening reading the magazines, news- 
papers, and books provided in the train library. You 
might write at a comfortable desk with train stationery, 
or dictate letters and telegrams to the train stenog- 
rapher. You are provided with hot and cold water, 
bathing facilities, and a barber shop. A maid could be 
summoned to the service of women and children; and a 
valet would be in attendance to sponge and press cloth- 
ing over night. You would arrive in New York the 
next morning at 9.45 o'clock, having traveled the 
thousand miles in eighteen hours. 

Simple as the idea of the sleeping car is in reality, it 
was not introduced until 1858, when the Lake Shore 
Railroad ran the first crude and uncomfortable night- 
cars. George M. Pullman in 1859 set for himself the task 
of producing a palace car which should be used for con- 
tinuous and comfortable travel through long distances 
by day and night. He remodelled into sleeping cars 



THE STEAM ENGINE 47 

two passenger coaches belonging to the Chicago and 
Alton Railroad. Though these cars fell far below the 
inventor's ideal, they were far in advance of the first 
make-shifts and in consequence created a demand for 
more and better cars of the same kind. In 18G3, 
at his factory in Chicago, Pullman began the construc- 
tion of the ^^ Pioneer/' the first of the Pullman palace 
cars. This car was built at a cost of $18,000. It was 
first used in the funeral train which conveyed the body 
of President Lincoln to his burial place in Springfield, 
Illinois. 

Few inventions have been financially so remunerative 
to the inventors as the Pullman palace car. It brought 
Mr. Pullman an immense fortune. The Pullman Pal- 
ace Car Company, founded by Pullman in 1807, is one 
of the largest and most successful manufacturing con- 
cerns in America. It employs a capital of $40,000,000, 
gives work to fourteen thousand persons, furnishes 
sleeping-car service for 120,000 miles of railway, and 
operates over 2,000 cars. Mr. Pullman adopted plans 
for the vestibule car in 1887. He died at his home in 
Chicago, October 19, 1897. 

The idea of the steamboat did not originate in the 
brain of Robert Fulton. It is claimed that, as early 
as 1543, Blasco de Garay propelled a boat by steam, 
and that in 1707, just a hundred years before the time 
of Fulton's Clermont, Papin ran a boat with steam on 
a river in Germany. In 1703 AMlIiam Henry experi- 



48 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

mcnted with a steamboat on the Conistoga River in 
Pennsylvania. 

James Rumsey, a Scotchman Hving in Maryland, is 
said to have been the first American to discover a 
method for running a vessel with steam against wind and 
tide. He conceived the idea in August, 1783. During 
1785 he made his boat, and in 1786 he navigated it on 
the Potomac River at Shepherdstown, Virginia, in the 
presence of hundreds of spectators. He wrote to Gen- 
eral Washington of his invention, and Washington 
wrote concerning it to Governor Johnson of Maryland. 
In 1839 Congress voted a gold medal to James Rumsey, 
Jr., son and only surviving child of the inventor, in 
recognition of the elder Rumsey^s achievement. 

In 1787 John Fitch exhibited on the Delaware River 
a vessel to be propelled by steam, and in 1790, from 
June to September, he ran a steamboat on that river 
between Philadelphia and Trenton. But he could not 
induce the public to patronize his boat, and for lack of 
business it had to be withdrawn. 

Some British authorities claim that the first practical 
steamboat in the world was the tug '' Charlotte Dundas/' 
built by William Symmington, and tried in 1802 on the 
Clyde and Forth Canal in Scotland. The trial was 
successful, but steam towing was abandoned for fear 
of injuring the banks of the canal. Symmington had 
built a small steamboat that traveled five miles an hour 
in 1788. 

To Robert Fulton, an American, belongs the credit 



THE STEAM EXGIXE 49 

for placing the steamI)oat on n successful commercial 
basis. Fulton was born at Little Britain, Pennsylvania, 
in 17G5. At the age of seventeen he adopted the i)ro- 
fession of jiortrait and landscape painter. At twenty- 




RoBERT Fulton 



two he went to England to study art. There he met 
James Watt, the inventor of the steam engine, and soon 
he began to give attention to mechanics. In 1 793 he 
started to work on the idea of propelhng boats by steam. 



50 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

He made an unsuccessful experiment with a steamboat 
on the Seine River in France. The vessel sank because 
its construction was faulty. Fulton returned to America 
and in New York harbor began to build another boat 
w^hich he named the Katherine of Clermont, shortened 
to the Clermont. Her engine was procured from Boul- 
ton and Watt in England. The boat was one hundred 
feet long and twenty feet wide, weighed one hundred 
sixty tons, and was equipped with side paddle wheels and 
a sheet-iron boiler. As the inventor worked patiently 
at his task, the newspapers gave him but little notice 
and the public ridiculed him. The New York legisla- 
ture had passed a bill granting to Fulton and to Chan- 
cellor Livingston the exclusive right to navigate with 
steam boats the waters of New York State. This bill 
was a standing subject of ridicule among the legisla- 
tors at Albany. 

In August, 1807, the Clermont was ready for her 
trial trip. A large crowd of spectators lined the banks 
of the Hudson as the boat slowly steamed out into the 
river. The crowd jeered and hooted and shouted at the 
vessel their nick-name of ^'Fulton^s Folly.'' As the 
Clermont moved up the river, making slow headway 
against the current, the crowd changed their jeers to 
expressions of wonder and finally to cheers. The dry 
pine wood used for fuel sent out a cloud of thick, black 
smoke, flames, and sparks, which spread terror among 
the watermen of the harbor. The Clermont made the 
voyage from New York up the Hudson to Chancellor 



THE STEAM ENGINE 51 

Livingston's country estate near Albany, a distance of a 
hundred ten miles, in twenty-four hours. The trip 
was without mishap and it thoroughly established the 
practicabihty of steam for purposes of navigation. 

Concerning this voyage Fulton wTote to a friend in 
Paris: ^'My steamboat voyage to Albany and back 
has turned out rather more favorably than I had cal- 
culated. The voyage was performed wholly by power of 
the steam-engine. I overtook many sloops and schoon- 
ers beating to windward, and parted with them as if 
they had been at anchor. The power of propelhng 
boats by steam is now fully proved. The morning I 
left New York there were not thirty persons in the city 
who beHeved that the boat would ever move a mile an 
hour, or be of the least utility. AVhile w^e were putting 
off from the wharf, I heard a number of sarcastic remarks. 
This is the way in which ignorant men compliment 
what they call philosophers and projectors. I feel 
infinite pleasure in reflecting on the immense advantages 
my country will derive from the invention.'^ 

The Clermont was soon running as a regular packet 
between New York and Albany. The owners of sailing 
craft on the river hated her and tried to sink her. The 
New York legislature passed a bill declaring that any 
attempt to destroy or injure the Clerviont should l)e 
a public offense punishable by fine and imprisonment. 
Then the enemies of the boat applied to the courts for 
an injunction restraining Fulton from navigating the 
Hudson with his steamboat. Daniel Webster api)eared 



52 



IXA^EXTIONS AND DLSCOM^]RIES 



as Fulton's attorney. He won the case and secured 
for the Clermont the full rights of the river. 

Fulton afterward built other steamboats, including 
a system of steam ferries for New York City. In 
1814 he constructed the first United States war steamer. 
Before constructing the Clermont, Fulton was interested 




The Clermont on the Hudson 



in canals and in the invention of machinery for spin- 
ning flax and twisting rope. He also made experiments 
w4th sub-marine explosives in England, France, and the 
United States; but these were considered failures. He 
died February 24, 1815. 

The first steamboat in the West was built at Pitts- 
burg in 1811, and within a few years after the first trip 
of the Clermont J steamboats were being used on all the 
leading rivers of the country. 

From the earliest times men had sailed the seas, but 



THE STEAM ENGINE 53 

their ships wore snuill iiiid slow and subject to wind, 
tide, and current. Tlie success of the river steaml)oat 
led to the use of steam in ocean navigation. The fij'st 
steamship to cross the Atlantic was the Savamialtj in 
1818. The vessel reUed almost as much uj)on wind as 
upon steam for motive power, but during the voyage of 
twenty-five days steam was used on eighteen days. 

The wood required for fuel left little room in the 
vessel for freight. With the advent of coal for fuel, 
and better machinery, steamships grew in importance, 
and in 1837 two ships, the Sirius and the Great Western, 
crossed the Atlantic from Liverpool to New York w^ith 
the use of steam alone. By 1850 the average time for 
a trans-Atlantic voyage had been reduced to eleven 
or twelve days. 

If the old Savannah could be placed beside the 
Lusitaniaj the giantess of the Cunard line of ocean 
steamers, a comparison would demonstrate the triumphs 
of the century in ocean navigation. If you were to 
cross the ocean on the Lusitania or her sister-ship the 
Mauretania, you would enter a vast floating mansion 
seven hundred ninety feet long, eighty-eight feet wide, 
eighty-one feet high from keel to boat deck, and weigh- 
ing thirty-two thousand five hundred tons. Her 
height to the mastheads is two hundred sixteen feet; 
each of her three anchors weighs ten tons; and her fun- 
nels are so large that a trolley car could easil}^ run 
through them. TIk* Ludtania has accommodation for 
three thousand passengers, officers, and crew, and is 



54 



INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 



driven by mighty turbine engines of sixty-eight thou- 
sand horse power. The steamer was built at a cost of 
$7,500,000. She has traveled the three thousand miles 
across the Atlantic in about four and a half days — the 
quickest trans- Atlantic voyage ever made. She moves 




The Lusitania of the Cunard Line 



through the great waves of the ocean with such steadi- 
ness that passengers can scarcely tell whether they are 
on water or land. A telephone system connects all 
parts of the ship; there are electric elevators, a special 
nursery in which children may play; a gymnasium for 



THE STEAM ENGINE 55 

exercise, shower baths, and an acre and a half of u])])er 
deck. There are five thousand electric lights, recjuiring 
two liundred miles of wire. Wireless telegraphy flashes 
messages to the moving ship from distant parts of the 
world, and bears back greetings from her passengers. 
A daily illustrated newspaper of thirty-two pages is 
published on board ship. 



CHAPTER IV 

ELECTRICITY: THE TELEGRAPH AND THE 
TELEPHONE 

The great miracle of the twentieth century is elec- 
tricity. If the printing press is the brain of civilization 
and the steam-engine is its hearty electric wires are 
its nervous system. Steam is a giant; electricity is a 
witch. There is something uncanny about it. Man 
writes volumes about electricity; calls it positive and 
negative and measures it in ohms and volts; gives 
courses to explain it in his schools and universities; 
kills criminals, cures the sick, and scatters darkness 
with it; makes it whirl him through space; compels 
it to bear his whisper through hundreds of miles, 
and can make it fly around the entire earth with his 
written word — and yet no man knows what electricity 
is. Electricity exists, and has always existed, from 
the back of a cat to the infinite arch of the sky. 

A hundred years ago practically nothing was known 
of electricity. Persons now living were born into a world 
that had never seen an electric telegraph, a telephone, 
an electric car, or an electric light. We are living in the 
morning of electrical knowledge, and what the day may 
bring no one can imagine. Americans have given the 
world many of the greatest inventions, and in the field 

56 



TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHOXE 57 

of electricity they have given it nearly everything of 
value. It is to American ingenuity that civilization is 
indebted for the electrical telegraph, the sub-marine 
cable, the telephone, the electric light, and the elec- 
tric car. The names of Morse, Vail, Field, Bell, Brush, 
Gray, Edison, and Sprague — all American electrical 
inventors — will always be prominent in the list of the 
world's great benefactors. 

If you will rub a stick of sealing wax briskly with a 
woolen cloth, you will find that the stick of wax will 
attract to itself bits of bran, small shreds of paper, and 
the like. This is the simplest experiment in electricity. 
In the same way, by rubbing amber with silk, Thales, 
a Greek philosopher who lived in the sixth century be- 
fore Christ, is thought to have discovered electricity. 
The Greek word for amber is elektron. Because of the 
supposed discovery of electricity in amber by Thales, 
the English word electricity was ^'coined'' and used for 
the first time by William Gilbert, a British physician 
and scientist, who lived during the reigns of Elizabeth 
and James. 

For nearly twenty-five centuries, reaching from the 
time of Thales to the opening of the nineteenth century, 
the world learned practically nothing about electricity. 
The start in modern electrical knowledge was made by 
Galvani, an Italian scientist, born in 1737, who just 
before tlie last century dawned showed that electricity 
can be produced by the contact of metals with fluids. 
The term galvanic, used in connection with electricity, 



58 IXVKXTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

comes from the name of this investigator. Galvani^s 
experiments suggested the electric battery to Volta, 
another Itahan scientist who was born in 1745. The 
electrical word voltaic is in honor of Volta. In 1752 
Benjamin Franklin flew his kite into the thmiderstorm 
and proved that lightning is electricity. A little 
later Hans Christian Oersted, a Danish investigator, 
pointed out the relation between electricity and magnet- 
ism. In the early part of the nineteenth century, 
Michael Faraday, an eminent English physicist, dis- 
covered the possibility of producing electric currents 
through the motion of a magnet. Faraday^s discovery 
led to the electric dynamo machine, the source of mod- 
ern power over electricity. 

The oldest and greatest of electrical inventions is the 
telegraph. Tele is a Greek adverb meaning ^'afar.^' 
Graph comes from the Greek verb ''to write. ^^ Tele- 
graph therefore means ''to write afar.'^ 

The idea of telegraphic communication is more than 
two and a half centuries old. In 1632 Galileo referred to 
a secret art of communicating at great distances by 
means of magnetic needles. In 1753 there appeared in 
the Scots Magazine an article signed "C. M.^' (since 
ascertained to have been Charles Morrison^ of Greenock 
in Scotland) setting forth a fairly clear idea of the elec- 
tric telegraph. Joseph Henry, of Washington, D. C, in 
1831 signaled through an electrical circuit a mile in 
length. The first commercially successful telegraj)!! was 
devised in 1837 by Samuel F. B. Morse, an American. 



TELEGRAPH AXD TELEPHONE 59 

Samuel Finlcy Brccse Morse was l)orn in Charlestown, 
Massachusetts, April 27, 179L He was educated in the 
common schools of his native town and in Yale T^iii- 
versity, where he was graduated in 1810. After gradu- 
ation, like Fulton, the inventor of the steamboat, he 
went to Europe to study art, and became successful as 
an artist. On his return to America in 1832, one of his 
fellow passengers on the ship was Charles T. Jackson, 
who had been studying electricity in Paris. Jackson 
told Morse of some experiments in electricity which the 
French had been making, and remarked that it would 
be a good thing if news could be transmitted through 
long distances by electricity. Morse rephed, ^'Why 
can't it be done?'^ From that hour he gave his time 
and energy to the invention of the electric telegraph. 
During the remainder of the voyage he drew plans for 
apparatus and tried to devise an electric alphabet. In 
1837 he put two instruments at the ends of a short line 
through which he sent and received messages. About 
this time he met a man who was destined to be of great 
service to him in promoting his invention, and one who 
deserves almost as much credit for it as Morse himself. 
This was Alfred Vail. 

Vail was born at Morristown, New Jersey, September 
25, 1807. He was a son of Stephen Vail, the wealthy 
owner of the Speedwell iron works. 

One day in September, 1837, after Morse had com- 
pleted his apparatus, he was invited to exhibit it at the 
University of the City of New York. Alfred Vail was 



60 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

a student in the university at the time and was one 
of the spectators to whom the apparatus was exhibited. 
He was much impressed with it. Morse needed money, 
and Alfred VaiFs father had it. Morse was invited to 
the home of the Vails in Speedwell, where the matter 
of the invention was talked over. The sum of two 
thousand dollars was necessary to get the invention 
started. Stephen Vail agreed to furnish the money. 
Alfred Vail was to construct apparatus and exhibit it 
to Congress. For this he was to have one fourth 
of the proceeds arising from the patent. 

Alfred Vail set to work to construct the apparatus. 
A room in his father's factory was set apart for this 
purpose. William Baxter, a bright mechanic em- 
ployed in the iron shops, was chosen to assist him. As 
secrecy was required for the work, the room was kept 
locked. For several months Vail and Baxter occupied 
together the locked room, sharing each other' s confi- 
dence and each other's elation or disappointment as the 
work went well or ill. On January 6, 1838, Baxter, 
without hat or coat, rushed to the elder Vail's residence 
to announce that the apparatus was completed. 

Mr. Vail had become discouraged. However, he went 
to see the trial of the apparatus. He found his son 
at one end of the three miles of wire that was stretched 
around the room, and Morse at the other. After a 
short explanation had been made to him, he wrote on a 
piece of paper, ^' A patient waiter is no loser." He then 
said to his son, ^^If you can send this, and Mr. Morse 



TELKGRArH AND TELEPHONE 



61 



can read it at the other end, I shall be convinced/' 
The message was sent and read at the other end of the 
wire. The apparatus was taken to Washington, where 
it created not only wonder but excitement. 




Samuel F. B. Morse 



In September, 1837, Morse filed an ap})lication for 
a patent on his invention. In December of the same 
year he failed in his effort to secure from Congress an 
appropriation for an experimental line which he pro- 
posed to build between Washington and Baltimore. 



62 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

In May, 1838, he went to Europe seeking aid. The 
governments there refused him funds or patents. In 
May, 1839, he returned to the United States and began 
an heroic struggle for recognition. During this period 
he often suffered for the barest necessities of hfe. 
Sometimes he could afford but a single meal in twenty- 
four hours. 

Finally, after repeated disappointments, when Morse 
himself had almost given up hope, the House of Repre- 
sentatives of the Twenty-seventh Congress, on the last 
night of its session, March 3, 1843, by a vote of ninety 
to eighty-two, appropriated thirty thousand dollars for 
building a trial hne between Washington and Baltimore. 
After the bill had passed the House, the outlook for its 
passage in the Senate was not bright. One Senator 
who was favorable to the bill advised Morse to ''give it 
up, return home, and think no more of it.'' The bill 
had been made the object of opposition and ridicule; 
one prominent official, to show his contempt for the 
project, proposed that half the amount asked for should 
be used in mesmeric experiments. Morse, behoving 
that the Senate would defeat the appropriation, went 
to his lodging place to retire for the night. He found 
that after paying the amount he owed at the hotel, he 
would have less than forty cents left. Early the 
next morning information reached him that a little 
before midnight the Senate had passed the bill. 
Apparent failure had turned into victory; the fight 
was won. 



TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE (33 

"Work was begun at once/ On April 30 the line 
reached Annapolis Junction, twenty-two miles from 
Washington, and was oi)erated with satisfactory re- 
sults. 

''May 1, 1844, was the date upon which the Whig 
convention was to assemble in Baltimore, to nominate 
the candidates of that party for President and Vice- 
President. It was arranged between Morse and Vail 
that the latter should obtain from the passengers upon 
the afternoon train from Baltimore to Washington, 
when it stopped at Annapolis Junction, information of 
the proceedings of the convention and transmit it at 
once to Morse at the Capitol in Washington. 

''The train arrived at half-past three o'clock, and 
from the passengers, among whom were many of the 
delegates to the convention, Mr. Vail ascertained that 
the convention had assembled, nominated the candi- 
dates, and adjourned. This information he at once 
dispatched to Morse, with whom was gathered a num- 
ber of prominent men who had been invited to be pres- 
ent. Morse sat awaiting the prearranged signal from 
Vail, when suddenly there came from the instru- 
ment the understood clicking, and as the mechanism 
started, unwinding the ribbon of paper upon which 
came the embossed dots and dashes, the complete 
success of the telegraph over twenty-two miles of 
wire was estabhshed. 

^From an account by Stephen Vail used m Graded Literature 
Readernj by permission of Truth. 



64 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

''Slowly came the message. When it had ended, 
Morse rose and said: 'Gentlemen, the convention has 
adjourned. The train bearing that information has 
just left Annapolis Junction for Washington, and Mr. 
Vail has telegraphed me the ticket nominated, and it 
ig_' he hesitated, holding in his hand the final proof of 
victory over space, 'it is— it is Clay and Frelinghuysen/ 

" 'You are quizzing us,' was the quiet remark. 'It's 
easy enough for you to guess that Clay is at the head of 
the ticket, but Frelinghuysen— who is Frelinghuysen?' 

" 'I only know,' was the dignified answer, 'that it is 
the name Mr. Vail has sent to me from Annapohs 
Junction, where he had the news five minutes ago 
from the train bound this way bearing the delegates.' 

"At that time the twenty-two miles from the Junction 
to Washington required an hour and a quarter for the 
fastest trains," and long before the train reached 
Washington the newsboys— enterprising even in those 
days— had their 'extras' upon the streets, their head- 
ings 'By Telegraph' telling the story, and being the 
first time that such a legend had ever appeared upon a 
printed sheet. 

" A great and enthusiastic crowd greeted the delegates 
as they alighted from the train at the station. They 
were struck dumb with astonishment when they heard 
the people hurrahing for 'Clay and Frelinghuysen,' 
and saw in cold type before their very eyes the in- 
formation which they supposed was exclusively their 
own, but which had preceded them 'by telegraph.' 



TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE 65 



7r-° 


» o 


o o «> 

o o o 

o <=» » 


a c. la 
C t > 


7^ 


• o o o 
e ^ o «» 

• O o o 


Ox 


?^ 


o o o 
o 9 e 
O e e 


O 
• 


= ^ 


» » < 


> « 


« — — :> o 6 


» 



-/ 



o m 



o C0 



o o o o e o 



^ -^ o ^ 



e e 



^ * ■ » ^ e o o o * ^ 

^ i. tr. '^ 

The First Message by Telegraph 

They had asked IVIr. Vail at the Junction wliat lie was 
doing when they saw him working the telegraph key, 
and when he told them, they joked about it most 
glibly, for no one had any belief in the success of the 
telegraph/' 

5 



G6 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

By May 23 the entire line was completed from Wash- 
ington to Baltimore. On the next day, May 24, 1844, 
Morse from Washington sent to Vail at Baltimore the 
first message ever sent over the completed wire, 
^^ What hath God wrought ?^^ 

This famous message was dictated by Miss Ellsworth, 
daughter of the commissioner of patents at that time. 
She had taken a keen interest in the success of the bill 
appropriating the thirty thousand dollars for the ex- 
periment, and was the first to convey to Morse the news 
that the bill had passed. Morse thereupon gave 
Miss Ellsworth his promise that the first message to 
pass over the line should be dictated by her. A bit 
of the original wire and the receiver that Vail used at 
Baltimore are now preserved in the National Museum 
in Washington. The transmitter used by Morse at 
the Washington end of the line has been lost. 

Morse lived to see his system of telegraphy adopted 
by the United States, France, Germany, Denmark, 
Sweden, Russia, and Austraha. Ninety-five per cent 
of all telegraphy is by his system. He finally received 
a large fortune from his invention. Unlike Columbus, 
Morse was honored in his lifetime for his achievement. 
Foreign nations bestowed upon him honors and 
medals, and in August, 1858, a convention of European 
powers called by Napoleon III at Paris gave Morse 
four hundred thousand francs (about $80,000) as a 
testimonial of his services to civilizaton. In October, 
1842, he laid the first sub-marine telegraph line. It 



TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE 67 

was across the harbor of New York. Later lie assisted 
Peter Cooper and Cyrus W. Field in their efforts to 
lay the first Atlantic cable. Honored by all the civil- 
ized world, he died in New York City April 2, 1872. 
Thirteen years earlier Vail had died at liis home in 
Morristown, New Jersey. 

In the Morse system the alphabet is represented by 
combinations of dots and dashes. The dots denote 
short currents of electricity flowing through the wire; 
the dashes, longer ones. Credit for the alphabet 
really belongs to Vail; Morse had devised a some- 
what comphcated system, but Vail invented the 
dots and dashes. He discovered that e and t are the 
most frecjuently used letters. He denoted e by one 
dot, or one short current; t he indicated by one dash, 
or one long current. The other letters are denoted 
by dots and dashes, as a, one dot and one dash; h, one 
dash and three dots, etc. 

In 1838 Steinheil, a German investigator, contributed 
an important element to the practical operation of the 
electric telegraph by discovering that the earth could 
take the place of the return wire, which up to that 
time had been deemed necessary to complete the 
circuit. 

At first only one message could be sent over a wire 
at a time. Now several messages may be transmitted 
in opposite directions over the same wire at the same 
time. 

Wireless telegraphy is based on the principle discov- 



68 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

ered and announced by the English scientist Michael 
Faraday, that heat, hght, and electricity are trans- 
mitted by ether waves, and that these ether waves 
permeate all space. The &st to demonstrate the 
practical operation of wireless telegraphy was Guglielmo 
Marconi, an Itahan. In 1890 he undertook experiments 
to prove his theory that the electric current readily 
passes tlirough any substance, and when once started 
in a given direction follows a direct course without the 
aid of a conductor. Marconi made the fu^st practical 
demonstration of wireless telegraphy in 1896. In 
March, 1899, he sent a wireless message across the 
English channel from France to England. In December, 
1901, be began his first experiments in wireless teleg- 
raphy across the Atlantic. In December of the follow- 
ing year the first official trans- Atlantic wireless message 
was sent. Now wireless telegraphic messages are 
sent regularly to and from moving ships in mid-ocean, 
and across the three thousand miles of the Atlantic 
between Europe and America. 

One of the most striking illustrations of the power of 
perseverance is the successful struggle of Cyrus West 
Field in laying the Atlantic cable. Mr. Field was born 
in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, November 30, 1819. 
His schooling, which was shght, was secured in his 
native town. When he was fifteen years old, he se- 
cured a position in a business house in New York 
City at a salary of fifty dollars a year. He subsequently 
founded a prosperous business in the manufacture 



TELEGRAPH AND TELEPIIOXE 09 

and sale of paper. In lSr)4 Mr. Field's attention was 
directed to an attempt to lay an electric cable at 
Newfoundland; which had failed for want of funds. 
The idea of lajdng a cable across the Atlantic occurred 
to him. He laid his plans before a number of prom- 
inent citizens of New York. On four successive 
evenings they met at his home to study the project, 
and they finally decided to undertake it. On May 6, 
1854, a company was organized to lay the cable, with 
Peter Cooper as president. 

The next twelve years Field devoted exclusively to 
the cable. He went to England thirty times. The 
first cable was brought from England and was to be 
laid across the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Forty miles 
had been successfully laid, when a storm arose and the 
cable was cut in order to save the ship. Then came a 
year's delay. Meantime the bottom of the sea was 
being explored and a vast tableland was discovered 
stretching from Newfoundland to Ireland. Field 
went to England, where he had httle difficulty in organ- 
izing a company, and work was then begun on the 
construction of a new cable. Next he laid his enter- 
prise before Congress, and asked for money. An 
appropriation bill was finally passed in the Senate by 
a majority of one, and was signed by President Pierce 
on March 3, 1857, the day before he retired from oflfice. 
Field returned to England to superintend the con- 
struction of the cable and to make preparations for 
laying it. At last it was ready, tested, and coiled on 



70 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

the ship. On August 11, 1857, the sixth day out, 
after three hundred and thirty-five miles had been 
laid, the cable parted. 

Lord Clarendon, in an interview with Field, had re- 
marked: ^^ But, suppose you don't succeed? Suppose 
you make the attempt and fail — your cable is lost in 
the sea — then what will you do?'' The reply came 
promptly, ''Charge it to profit and loss, and go to work 
to lay another." Lord Clarendon was so well pleased 
with the reply that he pledged his aid. The loss of 
three hundred and thirty-five miles of cable w^as the 
loss of half a million dollars. Field came back to 
America and secured from the Secretary of the Navy 
the vessels needed for another trial. On June 10, 
1858, the United States steam frigate Niagara, then 
the largest in the world, and the British ship Agamem- 
non set out from opposite shores, bound for mid-ocean. 
The vessels met, and the two sections of the cable 
were spliced; then they began laying it toward both 
shores at the same time. After a little more than a 
hundred miles had been laid, this cable parted in mid- 
ocean, and Field hurried to London to meet the dis- 
couraged directors. 

On July 17, the ships set sail again for mid-ocean. 
The cable was spliced in fifteen hundred fathoms of 
water and again the ships started for opposite shores. 
Field was on the Niagara headed toward Newfound- 
land. Scarcely any one looked for success. Field 
was the only man who kept up courage through this 



TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE 



71 



trying i)erio(l. On August 5, ISoS, lie telegraphed 
the safe arrival of the shij) at Newfoundland. The 
shore ends of the cable were laid and on August IG a 
message from Queen Victoria of England to President 




Cykus W. Field 



Buchanan flashed under the sea. There was great 
excitement everyw^here. The two worlds had been 
tied together with a strange electric nerve. 

On the evening of the first of September a great 
ovation was tendered Field in New York. National 



72 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

salutes were fired; processions were formed; there was 
an address by the mayor, and late at night a great 
banquet. While the banquet was in progress, the 
cable parted. 

Everyone except Field was disheartened. He went 
to work again, and during the next five years, the 
long years of the Civil War, he labored unceasingly. 
A larger cable with a greater resisting force was made. 
On the twenty-third of July, 1865, the steamship Great 
Eastern began another attempt to lay the cable. \\Tien 
it was within six hundred miles of Newfoundland, the 
cable parted again. For nine days attempts were 
made, in two and a half miles of water, to grapple the 
cable, splice it, and continue the work of laying it. 
Three times the cable was grappled, but the apparatus 
on the ship was not strong enough to hoist it aboard. 
Still Field never faltered. Another British company 
was formed and another cable was constructed. The 
Great Eastern was again loaded and on July 13, a 
Friday, set sail westward laying the cable. After an 
uncertain voyage of tw^o weeks the Great Easter7i 
arrived at Newfoundland, and the undertaking had 
again been successfully accomplished. Field tele- 
graphed his arrival as follows: ^^ Hearts Content, 
July 27, 1866. We arrived here at nine o'clock this 
morning. All well. Thank God, the cable is laid, and 
is in perfect working order. Cyrus W. Field.'' 

Twelve years of unfaltering perseverance had won. 
Honors were heaped upon Field. Congress voted 



TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE " 73 

him a gold medal and the thanks of the nation. The 
prime minister of Great Britain declared that only the 
fact of his being the citizen of another nation prevented 
his receiving the highest honors in the power of the 
British government to bestow. The Paris ''Exposi- 
tion Universelle'' of 18G7 honored him with the Grand 
Medal, the highest prize it had to give. 

Mr. Field was afterward interested in the laying of 
cables connecting Europe, Lidia, China, Australia, 
the West Indies, and South America. In 1880-81 
he made a trip around the world, full of satisfaction 
in his own part in making a new era of the world's 
civilization. He died at his home in New York on 
July 11, 1892. 

The effect of the electric telegraph on government, 
intelhgence, and civihzation in general can scarcely 
be overstated. Sydney Smith, writing to Earl Grey 
after the admission of Cahfornia into the United 
States, said that this marked an end to the great 
American republic; for how could people with such 
diversified interests, with such natural barriers, hold 
together? He did not foresee how strongly a fine 
copper wire could bind together the two seaboards 
and the great plains of the interior. Without the 
electric telegraph, neither the great daily newspaper 
nor the modern operation of railroads would be possi- 
ble. It wipes away the natural boundaries of nations 
and makes neighbors of all men. 

In 1819 Sir Charles Wheatsone, an English i)hysi- 



74 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

cist, invented an instrument popularly known as the 
^^ magic lyre, '' but which he called the telephone. The 
first part of this word is the same Greek adverb tele 
that is found in telegraph. The phone is from another 
Greek word meaning ^'to sound/' To telephojie, there- 
fore, means 'Ho sound afar/' The use of the Enghsh 
word telephone by Wheatsone is historically the first 
appearance of the word in our language. His device 
did nothing but reproduce music by means of sound- 
ing boards. The inventor of the modern telephone is 
Alexander Graham Bell. 

Mr. Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, March 3, 
1847. His father was Alexander Melville Bell, a 
Scotch educator, inventor of a system of visible 
speech, and author of some text-books on elocution. 
His grandfather was Alexander Bell, noted for his 
efforts to remove impediments of speech. Alexander 
Graham Bell was therefore well fitted by heredity for 
the invention of an instrument to transmit speech. 
He was educated in the Edinburgh high school and in 
the University of Edinburgh, and in 1867 he entered 
the University of London. Hard study broke down 
his health and he moved to Canada. Thence he moved 
to the United States, becoming first a teacher of deaf 
mutes, and afterward professor of vocal physiology 
in Boston University. In 1874, at the suggestion of 
the Boston Board of Education, he began some exper- 
iments to show to the eye the vibrations of sound, for 
the use of the deaf and dumb. The results of these 



TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHOXE 75 

experiments conviiiccMl BvW tluit urticuhito speech 
could be transmitted tiirougli sjnicc. Early in 1870 
he completed the first telephone. The same year he 
exhibited it at the Centennial Exposition at Philadel- 
phia, where it was pronounced the ^'wonder of 
wonders/' 

He filed application for a patent on his invention at 
the Patent Office in Washington, February 14, 187(). 
It is a singular fact that another application for a 
patent on the telephone was received at the Patent 
Office a few hours later on the same day from Elisha 
Gray, an electrical inventor of Chicago. The patent 
was issued to Bell, not because his invention was 
superior in merit to Gray's, but on the ground that _ ;• 
his application was received first. This is a case 
where ''the early bird catches the worm,'' for the 
profits arising from the patent have made Mr. Bell 
very wealthy, and high honors have come to him as 
the inventor of one of the world's greatest and most 
marvelous inventions. 

The Bell Telephone Company 'was organized in 1877, 
and in 1878 the first telephone exchanges were con- 
structed. By the following year the telephone was 
firmly established as a social and commercial necessity. 
It has grown with great rapidity. It is now found in 
every city of the world; hotels, large buildings, and 
shii)s have their private exchanges, and it has found 
its way recently into thousands of farmhouses. 

Bell had to fight hard in the courts to sustain his 



76 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

patent. Suit after suit was brought by rival claimants, 
attacking his right to the patent. The litigation was 
bitter and protracted. One of the most noteworthy 
of these suits was brought by a Pennsylvania mechanic 
named Drawbaugh. He claimed that about 1872 he 
had made a working telephone out of a cigar box, a 
glass tumbler, a tin can, and some other crude mate- 
rials; and that with the apparatus thus constructed he 
had talked over a wire several hundred feet long. 
Many persons testified that they were acquainted 
with Drawbaugh's apparatus, some of them having 
used it. Some instruments, said to be the original 
ones which Drawbaugh had constructed, were brought 
into court and exhibited. It was shown that speech 
could be transmitted with them in a crude way. 
Drawbaugh claimed that he was too poor at the time 
of making the apparatus to take out the necessary 
patent. The Court decided in favor of Bell. Elisha 
Gray, whose appHcation for a patent had been received 
the same day that BelFs was, also brought suit against 
Bell. Before making his application, Gray had 
filed some prehminary papers looking forward to a 
patent on the telephone. In his suit against Bell he 
charged that the patent examiner had fraudulently 
and secretly conveyed to Bell the contents of those 
papers. But Bell won this suit, and he finally estab- 
lished over all rivals his legal title as the inventor of 
the telephone. 

Recently a wireless system of telephoning has been 



TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE 77 

in process of development, and it will not be strange 
if, within a few years, we shall be talking through 
sj)ace without wires, so boundless seem the possibihties 
of the age. 



CHAPTER V 

ELECTRICITY: LIGHTING, TRANSPORTATION, 
AND OTHER USES 

Man must have discovered artificial light as soon as 
he discovered fire, for the two exist together. The 
first light was probably produced by burning sticks 
or pieces of wood. In his search for more light, man 
learned how to make the tallow candle. Lights made 
in one' form or other from the fats of animals persisted 
almost to the threshold of the present. The next step 
forward was to the use of oil; and the next, to the use 

of gas. 

The first practical use of gas fqr purposes of illumina- 
tion was in 1792. In that year William Murdoch, an 
Enghsh engineer, produced gas artificially from coal, 
and with it hghted his house in Cornwall, a county of 
England. Nine years afterward a Frenchman named 
Lebon illuminated his house and garden in Paris with 
gas produced from wood. Street lighting by gas was 
introduced in 1807 by an Englishman named F. A. 
Winzer or Windsor, in Pall Mall, one of the fine streets 
of London. The first gas lights in America were 
installed in 1806 by Da\dd Melville, of Newport, Rhode 
Island, in his residence and in the streets adjacent. 

78 



LIGHTING AND TRANSPORTATION 79 

Baltimore was the first city in the Uiiitod States to 
adopt gas lighting for its streets. Tliis was in LSI?. 

When gas was first used^ there was mucli opposition 
to it, as there usually has been to improvements in 
general. The citizens of Philadelphia protested for 
more than twenty years against the introduction of 
gas into that city for purposes of illumination. Some 
of the newspapers of the time called gas a ^'foll}^ and 
a nuisance''; and one of the professors in the University 
of Pennsylvania declared that even if gas were the 
good thing its supporters were declaring it to be, tallow 
candles and oil lamps were good enough for him. 
But gas triumphed, and to-day the world could scarcely 
do without it, either for illumination or for fuel. 

The electric light had its beginning about 1800 in 
the experiments of Sir Humphiy Davy, a British inves- 
tigator. He discovered that if two pieces of carbon 
are brought into contact, completing a circuit through 
which an electric current flows, and if the carbon 
points are separated by a short distance, the points 
will become intensely hot and emit a brilliant light. 
The word arc, used in connection with the arc lamp or 
light, refers to the gap or arc between the two carbon 
points, across which the electric current leaps in creat- 
ing the light. 

Following Sir Humphry Davy's experiments, sevc^ral 
arc lights were invented, with greater or less degree of 
success, and about 1800 electricity was tried success- 
fully for lighting in some lighthouses along the British 



80 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

coast. The widespread usage and the usefulness of 
the arc electric light; however^ are due to Charles 
Francis Brushy an electrical inventor of Cleveland, 
Ohio, who in 1876 simplified the arc light so as to bring 
it into general use for lighting streets, large rooms, 
halls, and outdoor spaces. Brush was also the in- 
ventor of an electric-dynamo machine that has added 
to his fame. After the invention of the arc hght, he 
took out more than fifty other patents. The incan- 
descent electric light, for lighting residences and small 
rooms, came a little later as the invention of Edison. 

Thomas Alva Edison is one of the most remarkable 
men of all times and places. Alexander, Caesar, and 
Napoleon together did not benefit mankind as has 
this quiet American inventor. He was born at Milan, 
Ohio, February 11, 1847. His father was of Dutch 
descent and his mother was Scotch. The mother, 
who had been a teacher, gave him all the schooling 
he received. Early in life he showed great mental 
vigor and ingenuity. When he was twelve years 
old, he is said to have read the histories of Hume and 
Gibbon. 

When Thomas was seven years old, the Edison 
family moved to Port Huron, Michigan. He soon 
became a newsboy on the Grand Trunk railway running 
into Detroit. He also became proprietor of a news 
stand, a book store, and a vegetable market, each a 
separate enterprise in Port Huron, employing eleven 
boys in all. His spare hours in Detroit, between the 



LIGHTING AND TRANSPORTATION 81 

arrival and dc^parture of his (rain, lie spent reading; in 
the Fre(^ Lihrar}'. Before long he had bought a small 




Thomas A. Edison 



hand printing press, some old type, and plates for 
^'patent insides'' from the proprietor of a Detroit 
newspaper, and using the baggage car for an office, he 

6 



82 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

started the Grand Trunk Herald , the first and only 
newspaper ever pubHshed on a railway train. His 
mquiring mind led him one day to make some chemical 
experiments in the car. He overturned a bottle of 
phosphorus, set the car on fire, and as a result was not 
permitted to use it longer for a newspaper office. 

One day young Edison snatched the child of the 
station agent at Mount Clemens, Michigan, from be- 
neath the wheels of a locomotive. In gratitude for 
this act, the station agent taught him telegraphy. In 
a few months his ingenuity, one of the chief character- 
istics of the great inventor, led him to string a private 
telegraph wire from the depot to the town. Over 
this wire he forwarded messages, charging ten cents 
for each message. Next he went to Stratford, Canada, 
as night operator for the Grand Trunk railway. One 
night he received an order to hold a train. He stopped 
to reply before signaling the train, and when he reached 
the platform the train had passed. A collision resulted, 
though not a serious one, and Edison was ordered to 
report at the office of the general manager. Edison 
hastily climbed on a freight train, went to Port 
Huron, and probably has not yet called on the general 
manager. 

Edison worked as telegraph operator at various 
places. Although he was a brilliant and rapid teleg- 
rapher, his fondness for playing pranks and making 
fun lost him several positions. After making his first 
experiments with a telegraph repeater, he left Indiana- 



LIGHTING AND TRANSPORTATION Sli 

polls for CiiiciiuKitl, whore ho oarnod sixty dollars por 
month, besides something (^xtra for ni,i;-ht work. lie 
worked next In Loulsvillo and Memphis. IIo was 
poor in purse, for all his money went to defray the 
expenses of his experiments. His fondness for \'ictor 
Hugo's great work, Les MiserahleSj gained for him the 
nicknames of '^Victor'' and '^Hugo/' 

At Memphis he perfected his telegraph repeater and 
was the first to bring New Orleans into direct comnui- 
nication with New York. However, the manager at 
Memphis was jealous of him and dismissed him. 
Shabby and destitute, he made his way back to Louis- 
ville, walking a hundred miles of the way, and resumed 
his old position. After he had worked in the Louisville 
office for two years, his experimenting again got him 
into trouble. He upset some sulphuric acid, part of 
which trickled through the floor and spoiled the carpet 
in the manager's room below. For this he was dis- 
charged. He next went to New Orleans, intending 
to sail for Brazil; but the ship had gone and an old 
Spanish sailor advised him to stay in America. He 
went back to Cincinnati, where he made some of his fu'st 
experiments in duplex telegraphy, a system whereby 
tw^o messages may be sent over the same wirc^ at the 
same time. 

A little while afterward, as poor as ever and as un- 
attractive in dress, he walked into the telegra})h office in 
Boston, where Ik^ had procured work. His co-workers 
there, thinking they would liavc some fun at his ex- 



84 IXVEXTI0X8 AXD DLSCOVERIRS 

pense, set him to receiving messages from the most 
rapid operators in Xew York. Instead of throwing 
up his hands in defeat^ as his companions expected, 
he received the messages easily, with a good margin to 
spare, and asked the operator sending at the other 
end of the hne to ^^ please send with the other foot/^ 
He was at once placed regularly on the X^ew York 
wire. While in Boston, Edison opened a small work- 
shop, put many of his ideas into definite shape, and 
took out his first patent. It was upon a chemical 
apparatus to record votes. He tried to introduce 
this into Congress, but failed, although he proved that 
it ^Svould work.'' 

He left Boston not onl}^ without money, but in 
debt, and went to New York. This was in 1871 when 
he was twenty-four years old. At that time an appara- 
tus called a ^'gold indicator'' was in use in the offices 
of about six hundred brokers, to show fluctuations in 
the prices of gold. The system was operated from a 
central office near Wall street. One day this central 
office was filled with six hundred messenger boys, 
each bringing the complaint that the machinery had 
broken. X^'o one knew how to repair it. A stranger 
walked up, looked at the apparatus, and said to the 
manager, ''Mr. Law, I think I can show you where 
the trouble is." The machinery was repaired, the 
office was cleared, and oi'der was restored. ''What 
is your name, sir?" asked the delighted manager. 
*' Edison," was the reply. He was engaged as super- 



LIGHTING AXD TRAXSl^ORTATIOX 85 

intcndcnt at n. salary of S20() per month, and from that 
hour his fortunes wore assured. 

Edison at once busied himself witli inventing. He 
improved and invented various machines used in the 
stock markets, and in 1872 perfected his system of 
duplex telegraphy. Two years later he brought out 
the wonderful quadruplex system, by which four 
messages may be sent over the same wire at the same 
time. This system saved millions of dollars and dis- 
pensed with thousands of miles of poles and wires. 

He started a large factory at Newark, New Jersey, 
emplo3dng some three hundred men. Sometimes 
he was working on as many as forty-five improvements 
and original inventions at once. In 1876 he stopped 
manufacturing and turned all his attention to invent- 
ing. In that year he established a laboratory at Menlo 
Park, New Jersey, twenty-five miles from New York 
City. When this laboratory was outgrown, he founded 
a new one at Orange, New Jersey, the largest labora- 
tory ever established by one man for scientific research 
and invention. It comprises one building 250 feet 
long and three stories high, and four smaller buildings, 
each one hundred feet long and one story high. The 
])rincipal building contains a library of thirty thousand 
reference books, a lecture room, and an exhibition 
room, where a remarkable collection of instruments 
of almost every kind is to be seen. 

When Edison began working to produce an incandes- 
cent electric light for illuminating residences and small 



86 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 



rooms, most of the scientists of England said that 
such a hght could not be produced. For nine years 
he worked on this invention. The chief problem was 
to find, for the horseshoe thread or filament used to 
give off the light, a material that should glow with 
sufficient intensity and yet not be con- 
sumed by the great heat necessary to 
produce the light. In his search for this 
material he tried all kinds of rags and 
textiles steeped in various chemicals, 
different kinds of paper, wood, inner and 
outer bark, cornstalks, etc. Finally he 
sent one of his assistants to the East, 
and in Japan a kind of bamboo was 
found answering the requirements. Per- 
severance won, and the incandescent elec- 
ipk trie light became a reahty about 1880. 
txJ Thomas Edison is one of the most 
systematic of workers, and nearly all 
his inventions have been the result of 
intelhgent and methodical labor directed 
toward a definite aim. He reads carefully what 
other investigators have found out, so as not to waste 
time in going over fruitless ground. He also keeps 
copious note books of his own operations, so that there 
may be no loss of time and energy. His invention of 
the phonograph, however, was accidental. While 
he was working to improve the telephone, the idea of 
the plionograph suddenly came into his mind. A 




An Incandes 
CENT Light. 



LIGHTING AXI) TRAXSPDRTATIDX S7 

little while afterward the first phonograph, criide 
but successful, was finished. At first this instrument 
was regarded as a toy, but later the invention was 
sold for a million dollars. 

Edison is a man of remarkable personality. Once 
when someone referred to him as a genius and said 
that he supposed a genius worked only when the spirit 
moved him, the inventor replied, ^'Genius is two per 
cent inspiration and ninety-eight per cent perspiration/' 
He certainly possesses great native talent for invent- 
ing. This was apparent in his early boyhood, liut 
much of his marvelous success is due to the intelligent 
direction of effort, to tireless perseverance, and to 
long hours of work. In 1897 he devoted his attention 
exclusively to the invention of a new storage battery, 
upon which he had been working for five years. For 
more than a year he worked harder than a day lal)orer. 
He was in his laboratory by half past seven in the 
morning; his luncheon was sent to him there; he went 
home to dinner, but he returned by eight o'clock. 
At half past eleven his carriage called for him, but 
often the coachman was compelled to wait three or 
four hours before the inventor was willing to susi)end 
his work. While the first incandescent electric light- 
ing plant was being prepared in New York City, Edison 
himself worked part of the time in the trenches, to I)c 
sure that the work would l)e i)roperly done. 

There is scarcely an electrical ai)paratus or an 
electrical process in existence to-day that does not 



88 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

bear the mark of some great change for the better 
coming from this most ingenious of American inventors. 
He has taken out more than four hundred patents on 
original inventions and improvements. Mr. Edison is 
still hving in his beautiful home at West Orange, New 
Jersey, near his laboratory. He is frequently called 
the ^^ Wizard of Menlo Park.^^ 

The idea of using electricity as motive power on 
railroads is nearly as old as the railroads themselves. 
In 1837; when the utility of steam for purposes of 
transportation was doubted, Robert Davidson pro- 
pelled a car with an electric engine on the Edinburgh 
and Glasgow road. In the fifties Thomas Davenport, 
a Vermont blacksmith, constructed an electric engine 
containing all the essential elements of the modern 
electric motor. Little progress, however, was made 
in the use of electricity for motive power, because the 
cost of producing the electric current was so great. In 
1887 Lieut. Sprague, overcoming most of the difficul- 
ties then existing, installed at Richmond, Virginia, the 
first successful electric railway in the world. Managers 
of street railways in other cities visited Richmond, and 
after an inspection of what Sprague had done there, 
decided to substitute electricity for animal power. 
No other construction has had a more rapid growth 
since the time of its invention than the electric railway. 
In 1890 there were only thirteen unimportant electric 
roads. Now there is hardly a city of the civilized 
world where the hum of the electric street car is not 



LIGHTING AND TRANSPORTATION 89 

heard at all hours of day and night. Modern ur])an 
life could scarcely exist without it. It is rapidly 
pushing its way into the country and giving the farmer 
the privilege of rapid and cheap transit. 

The uses of electricity are by no means exhausted 
in the four major inventions of the telegraph, the 
telephone, the electric light, and the electric street 
car. It has been put to many minor uses. Among 
the most interesting and important of these are the 
Roentgen or X-rays, discovered by AVilhelm Konrad 
von Roentgen, a German physicist, in 1895. They 
were named X-rays by their discoverer, because the 
ultimate nature of their radiation was unknown, the 
letter X being commonly used in algebra to represent 
an unknown quantity. The X-rays are peculiar elec- 
tric rays having the power to penetrate wood, flesh, 
and other opaque substances. They are of much value 
to surgery in disclosing the location of bullets, foreign 
substances of various kinds, and other objective 
points in the interior of the human body. 

The United States government has demonstrated 
through its Department of Agriculture that electricity 
applied to the soil will (juicken and help the growth 
of certain vegetables. It has also shown that certain 
crops are forwarded by the application of electric 
light. 

The New York legislature in 1888 passed a law 
pro\dding that criminals should be executed in that 
state thereafter by electrocution, that is, by sending 



90 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

through the body of the condemned person, a current 
of electricity strong enough to produce death. Execu- 
tion in this way makes death quicker and apparently 
less painful than by hanging, the method used previ- 
ously, and subsequently several other states have passed 
laws for electrical execution, following the example 
of New York. 

Ehsha Gray, who contested with Bell the invention 
of the telephone, was the inventor of a peculiar machine 
called the telautograph. Tele and graph have been 
previously explained. Auto is from a Greek word 
meaning ^ ^itself. '^ The meaning of telautograph j 
therefore, is ^^to write afar by itself.'^ By means 
of the telautograph, which is operated with electric 
currents, if a person writes with an ordinary lead 
pencil on paper, say in Washington or any other 
place, at the same time the writing will be reproduced 
with pen and paper at the other end of the line, in 
New York or wherever the message may be sent. 

One of the important uses of electricity is in connec- 
tion with the electric block signal. This is a de\dce 
for preventing railroad collisions. The signals are 
operated with electricity, and show engineers whether 
or not a certain section of the track ahead of them is 
clear. 

Electricity is used also in the production of certain 
chemical substances; in covering base metals with a 
coating of a precious metal, as gold or silver, called elec- 
troplating; in producing a solid metal page from rows 



LIGHTING AND TRAXSPORTATION 91 

of type, called an electrotype, which is used in print- 
ing; in the navigation of small boats and the propulsion 
of automobiles; in playing organs and pianos; in driv- 
ing electric fans; in drawing elevators in high buildings; 
in call-bells and door-bells; in i)olice-alarms and fire- 
alarms; in the treatment of certain diseases; and in 
many other useful ways. What electricity may do 
for the future cannot even be guessed. 



CHAPTER VI 
THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

The birthplace of mankind is supposed to have 
been somewhere in Asia, untold thousands of years 
ago. The race is thought to have spread thence to the 
northern coast of Africa and to the peninsulas that jut 
down from the south of Europe. The travelers of 
ancient times were the Phoenicians. They occupied 
a narrow strip of land along the eastern shore of the 
Mediterranean Sea. Their country was small and 
with difficulty supported an increasing population. 
To the east of them were barbaric hordes, who poured 
over the mountains and pushed the Phoenicians to the 
sea, making of them traders and colonizers. As early 
as twelve centuries before Christ they were founding 
colonies, exploring strange lands, trading all over the 
known world, and lea\dng their alphabet wherever 
they went. Arriving at a favorable place, they would 
pull their ships ashore, plant a crop, wait till it had 
matured, reap it, and go on. They founded many 
colonies on such sites. 

Herodotus, a Greek, born in Asia Minor nearly five 
hundred years before Clirist, is called the father of 
history and geography. He tells us that in his time 
the earth was thought to consist of the coast regions 

92 



THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 93 

of the Mcditcrnuicaii Sea, extending rather vaguely 
north and south, and bounded on the west by the 
Atlantic Ocean and on the cast by the great Persian 
Empire. The word Mediterranean is made up of two 
Latin words meaning ^^the middle of the earth/' 
Eratosthenes, a Greek geographer who was born on 
the northern coast of Africa about tliree centuries 
before Christ, wrote a geographical treatise in which 
he announced his belief that the earth was in the form 
of a sphere revolving on its own axis. He succeeded 
in con\dncing only a few, however, that his theory 
was right. The next great geographer was Strabo, 
born in the northeast part of Asia Minor in the year 
64 B.C. He was a great traveler and observer, and 
wrote a work on geography that has come down to us. 
The parts dealing with his own observations are 
especially valuable. 

The great traveler of mediaeval times was Marco 
Polo, an Italian, born in Venice in 1254 A.D. He 
traveled widely, had many adventures, and published 
an account of his travels. His experiences were a 
great stimulus to geographical inquiry and discovery. 
About this time also the mariners' compass was intro- 
duced into Europe. Civihzation seems to be indebted 
to the Chinese for the compass, for it is mentioned by 
them as an instrument of navigation as earl}' as the 
third or fourth century after Christ. 'W'lWi the advent 
of the compass, seamen were no longer compelled to 
hug the shore; they acquired more daring to sail the 



94 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

open sea, and geographical exploration was correspond- 
ingly widened. 

Geographical knowledge grew very slowly. By 
the beginning of the eighteenth century, explorers 
had become famihar with the range of the ocean, the 
outline of the continents, and with many islands. 
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, four 
fifths of the land area of the entire globe was unknown. 
Africa, except a narrow rim of coast, was almost as 
little known as the planet Mars is to-day. At the 
opening of the last century men knew little more 
about Asia than did Marco Polo, three or four centuries 
earlier. In America the whole vast. area west of the 
Mississippi River was unknown in 1800. The coast 
of Australia had not yet been traced, and nothing 
was known of its interior. At that time South America 
was better known than any other of the continental land 
masses, except Europe; now it is the least explored 
of all. The nineteenth century, wonderful for advance- 
ment in many fields of human endeavor, was a marvel- 
ous one for the growth of geographical knowledge. 
As we stand in the doorway of the twentieth century, 
there is scarcely one eleventh of the land area of the 
whole earth that remains unexplored. Lewis and 
Clark pushed their way through the unknown vastness 
of the American Northwest; Livingstone and Stanley 
penetrated the dark continent of Africa; and in Septem- 
ber, 1909, Lieut. Robert E. Peary of the United States 
Navy startled civilization by announcing his discovery 



THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 95 

of the Nortli Pole. With the exception of a few 
interior tracts to-day, the only portions of the earth 
unknown and unmapped lie around the poles, and 
these are being rapidly sought out and brought to 
knowledge. 

Of all geographical conquests, by far the greatest is 
the discovery of America by Cluistopher Columbus in 
1492 A.D. The story of Columbus is one of the most 
interesting and pathetic in history. It is a story of 
toil; hardship, perseverance, and great success, re- 
quited with disappointment and disgrace. 

Christophoro Colombo was born in Genoa, Italy, 
about 1435 or 1436 A.D. Following the custom of 
those times in giving names Latin forms, his name 
became Christopher Columbus. In Latin the word 
coliunha means '^dove.'^ His father was a wool- 
comber who was wealthy enough to send his son to a 
university, where he studied mathematics and astron- 
omy. On leaving the university, he worked a few 
months at his father's trade, but when he was fifteen 
years old he determined to be a sailor. 

Of the late boyhood and early manhood of Columbus 
little is known. He seems to have traveled much, 
and it is certain that he studied much. It was popu- 
larly supposed in the time of Columbus that the earth 
was flat; that it was surrounded by a great world- 
river called ^'Oceanus'' or the ocean, and that if one 
should come to the edge he would plunge down into 
illimitable space. From the time of Eratosthenes 



or, INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

and Aristotle, Greek thinkers juul scholars who 
lived several hundreds of years before the birth of 
Christ had known that the earth was round, and 
Columbus believed this fact too. He mastered the 
books, both ancient and contemporary, on geography 
and navigation, learned to draw charts and to construct 
spheres, and fitted himself to be a practical seaman 
and navigator. 

In 1470 he arrived at Lisbon, Portugal, after he had 
been shipwrecked in a sea fight and had escaped to 
land on a plank. In Portugal he married the daughter 
of an old sea captain. He pored over the logs and 
papers of his father-in-law, and talked with old seamen 
of their voyages and of the mysteries of the western 
sea. About this time he seems to have arrived at the 
conclusion that much of the world remained undis- 
covered. There were strange rumors about the western 
sea. Navigators had seen queer pieces of wood and 
some canes in the ocean, and the bodies of two strange 
men had been washed ashore, "very broad-faced, and 
differing in aspect from Christians." European com- 
merce was in need of a shorter route to Asia than the 
overland route then in use. Columbus hoped that he 
could reach the eastern coast of Asia by sailing west. 
He did not behevc the earth as large as it really is, 
and he over-estimated the size of Asia, so that he did 
not realize the breadth of the Atlantic or the magni- 
tude of the task 'before him. 

Columbus was poor, and money was required for so 



THE DLSCOVERY OF AMERICA 07 

huge iui uiulertiikiiig iis a voyii^^o (o Asia. It was 
necessary, tliercfon*, for liim to seek aid in tlic caiier- 
prise. He asked help first from the senate of his native 
town, Genoa; but Genoa turned to him an unhearing 
ear. He apphed next to King John of PortugaL The 
king referred the matter to a council of geographers, 
who reported against it. AVitli the lurking hope that 
there might be something in the plan, the king was 
dishonorable enough to send out an expedition secretly 
to test it. The sailors who made the attempt soon lost 
heart and returned without having accomplished any- 
thing. When Columbus learned of the king's secret 
attempt, he was so outraged that he left Portugal for 
Spain. At about the same time he sent his brother 
Bartholomew to England to enlist the assistance of 
the British sovereign. King Henry \TI. After much 
waiting and much vexation, Columbus at last gained 
the interest of the Spanish king, Ferdinand, who re- 
ferred the proposition to a council of his astronomers 
and geographers. They finally decided that the pro- 
ject was vain and visionary and that they could have 
nothing more to do with it. 

In great discouragement Columbus began prepara- 
tions to go to France. At the door of a monastery in 
the little maritime town of Palos, he knocked and asked 
for bread and water for his son, Diego, who was ac- 
companying him. He was received at the monastery, 
and there he met some persons of influence who inter- 
ceded for him with the Spanish queen, Isabella. He 

7 



98 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

went to the Court again, his plan was once more in- 
vestigated, and once more Columbus was refused the 
aid he was seeking. He set out for France and had 
journeyed some distance on the way. In the mean- 
time an official won the queen's consent to the enter- 
prise, and there is a story that in her enthusiasm she 
offered to pledge her jewels to raise money for the ex- 
pedition. A messenger who was sent to overtake Co- 
lumbus brought him back, and on the seventeenth of 
April, 1492, the formal agreement between him and the 
king and queen of Spain was entered into, signed, and 
sealed. 

Columbus's aim was to find the east coast of Asia. 
For the accomplishment of this he had a number of 
motives. He w^anted to win wealth and fame for him- 
self, to provide a shorter and cheaper route for com- 
merce with the East, and to convert to Christianity the 
Grand Khan, a great Asiatic ruler, to whom he bore a 
letter of introduction from the rulers of Spain. 

Great difficulty was experienced in finding sailors for 
so uncertain and terrifying a trip. Freedom was offered 
to convicts and bankrupts if they would accompany the 
expedition. At last seamen were secured to man three 
small ships, stores were provided, and everything was 
made ready for the voyage. The adventurers num- 
bered, all told, one hundi^ed and twenty. The shore 
presented a strange spectacle on the morning of depar- 
ture. The friends of the sailors stood on shore weeping 
and wringing their hands, confident in the belief that 



THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 99 

their loved ones would be swallowed up by some fabul- 
ous monster of the western deep, or in some way be 
forever lost to them. On the morning of Friday, 
August 3, 1492, at eight o'clock, the httle fleet of 
three ships weighed anchor at the port of Palos, Spain, 
and set out on the most uncertain and the greatest of 
all ocean voyages. 

The ships had been on the sea three weeks, and no 
land had yet been sighted. The compass no longer 
pointed due north. A meteor fell into the ocean not 
far from the ships. The sailors lost courage. They 
declared that they must perish if they went on, and that 
their commander ought to be compelled to return. 
Some of them proposed to throw him into the sea. 
Columbus kept two reckonings; a correct one for him- 
self, and an incorrect one to appease the sailors. He 
pleaded with his men to be courageous, as long as mild 
methods availed. He then grew harsh and commanded 
them. Through all the uncertainty and the mutterings 
of the sailors, he clung unwaveringly to his purpose — 
to push forward. He had no thought of going back. 

Flying birds and floating objects promised land, but 
time went on and no land appeared. The sailors grew 
more and more violent. On the night of the eleventh 
of October, Columbus himself saw a light in the dis- 
tance, which sometimes flickered and sometimes dis- 
appeared, as if it might be a torch borne by some one 
walking. All were now in eager expectanc}^. At two 
o'clock on the morning of Friday, October twelfth, 



100 INVEXTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

a cannon fired from one of the vessels announced 
that a sailor had actually discovered land. 

AVhen dayhght came, Columbus landed. The first 
thing he did upon reaching the shore was to fall upon 
Jiis knees, kiss the earth, and with tears of joy thank 
God for deliverance from the perils of such a voyage. 
His men, ashamed of their mutiny and distrust, threw 
themselves at his feet, imploring his forgiveness. 
Columbus next drew his sword, planted the royal 
banner, and in the name of the Spanish sovereigns took 
possession of the country. In honor of his deliverance 
he named the place San Salvador, which means Saint 
Savior, or Holy Savior. 

One of his three vessels was wrecked by a storm near 
the island of Santo Domingo, called also Hayti and His- 
paniola. Columbus built a fort on this island from the 
wrecked ship, and left in it a colony of about forty of 
the crew. Desirous of returning to Spain with an ac- 
(iount of his voyage, he set sail in January, 1493, on the 
return trip. A terrific storm was encountered. Colum- 
bus, fearing that his ships might sink, and wishing to 
preserve a record of what he had done, wrote an ac- 
count of the voyage on a piece of parchment and placed 
it in a cask, which he threw overboard in the hope that 
it might be carried to shore and found. The storm 
abated, however, and on the fifteenth of March he 
sailed with two of his vessels into flic port of 
Palos. 

He entered the city amid the shouts of the people, 




Columbus on the Deck of the Santa Maria. 
From the painting by vonPiloty. 



102 IXVEXTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

the booming of cannons, and the ringing of bells. 
Hastening to Barcelona, where the king and queen 
were then holchng court, he was received with a 
triumphal procession. Seated next to the throne, he 
gave an account of his discoveries and exhibited the 
new country's products which he had brought back- 
gold, cotton, parrots, curious weapons, strange plants, 
unknown birds and beasts, and the nine Indians whom 
he had brought with him for baptism. Great honors 
w^ere poured upon him. The king and queen could 
scarcely do enough for him. 

In September, 1493, Columbus sailed westward on his 
second voyage. The fort which he had built on Santo 
Domingo was found burned, and the colony was scat- 
tered. He decided to build a second fort, and coasting 
forty miles east of Cape Haytien he selected a site where 
he founded the town of Isabella, named in honor of the 
Spanish queen. He discovered and explored a number 
of the islands of the West Indies, including Porto 
Rico, which has belonged to the United States since the 
recent war with Spain. The second voyage closed with 
his return to Spain in June, 1496. 

On next to the last day of May, 1498, with six ships 
Columbus set out on his third voyage. On the first 
day of August he discovered the Continent of South 
America. He thought it was only an island. Sailing 
along the shore, he believed that the various capes which 
he passed were islands, and not until he reached the 
mouth of the great Orinoco River did he conclude that 



THE I)LS(H:)VEHY of AMKHKW 103 

what ho htul cliscovered wus not uii ishind hut a ^rrat 
continent. 

On his return to the new town of Isabella, he found 
that matters had not gone well there while he was away. 
The natives had risen in revolt against the tyranny of 
the governor whom Columbus left to rule the island in 
his absence. For some time Columbus's enemies, who 
had become jealous of him, had been trying to poison 
the minds of the Spanish king and queen against him. 
Finally the Spanish rulers sent an officer to inquire into 
the affairs of the new colony. When this officer arrived, 
he took possession of Columbus's house, put Columbus 
in chains, and sent him back to Spain. These chains 
Columbus kept to the day of his death, and his son 
Hernando says his father requested that they might be 
buried with him. After he arrived in Spain, he was 
restored to the good will of the king and queen who 
soon sent him on another voyage. 

In May, 1502, Columbus set sail on his fourth and 
last voyage, during which he endured very great dangers. 
Two of his vessels were destroyed by a storm and the 
other two were wrecked off the coast of Jamaica. 
Separated from all the rest of the world, a number of his 
companions revolted, threatened his life, deserted him, 
and settled on another part of the island. The natives 
ceased to bring him food, and death seemed imminent. 
In this extremity he took advantage of an approaching 
eclipse of the moon. He told the natives that his 
God would destroy the moon as a token of the 



104 IXVEXTIOXS AND DISCOVERIES 

punishment to be inflicted upon them, if they did 
not bring the white men food. When the echpse came, 
the natives implored Columbus to intercede for them 
with his God, and they brought him food in abun- 
dance. After the shipwreck, the navigator sent some 
of his boldest men in canoes to ask rehef of the governor 
of the colony in Hispaniola. The messengers reached 
the colony in safety, but the governor would not 
undertake the rescue of Columbus. They bought a 
vessel, took it to Jamaica, and after a year of danger 
and anxiety on the island, in June, 1504, Columbus 
started on his homew^ard voyage. In September of 
this year he landed on Spanish soil for the last time. 
This final voyage was not productive of any important 
results. 

Soon after his return Queen Isabella died, and about 
two years later, on May 12, 1506, Columbus himself 
died at Valladolid, Spain. He was buried first at Val- 
ladolid, but his remains were soon transferred to a mon- 
astery in Seville, Spain. They were exhumed in 1536 
and taken across the sea to the city of Santa Domingo, 
on the island of Hayti, which he had discovered. In 
1796 the remains were taken to Havana, Cuba, where 
they remained until the close of the Spanish- American 
war. In 1898, after the island of Cuba had passed from 
Spain to the United States, the body of the great admi- 
ral was taken across the Atlantic again to Spain, 
where it now rests. 

In person Columl)us was tall and well formed. 



THE DISCOVERY OF AMERKM 105 

Early in life he had auburn hair, but by the time lie was 
thirty years old his hair had l)cen turned white with 
care, hardship, and trouble. His face was long, and he 
had gray eyes and an aquihne nose. He was moderate 
hi all his habits, and was one of the most religious of 
men. He w^as of a poetic temperament and thus 
lacked some of the essential qualities of great leader- 
ship. He was broad in his outlook, noble in his 
aspirations, and benevolent in spirit. 

Columbus died ignorant of the fact that he had dis- 
covered a new world. He believed that the great 
continent which he gave to civilization was Asia, and 
that he had only found a new way to that country. 
He called the natives w^hom he found ^^ Indians,'' think- 
ing that they w^ere inhabitants of India. When it was 
known that a new country had actually been discovered, 
it was named ^'America'' in honor of Amdrigo Vespucci, 
an Itahan geographer and navigator, w^ho visited, it 
seems, the mainland of this country in 1497. The land 
discovered by Columbus on the night of October 12, 
1492, is believed to have been Watling's island, one of 
the groups of the West Indies. 

Eighteen years elapsed betw^een the time when 
Christopher Columbus conceived his enterprise and that 
August morning in 1492 when he set sail on his first 
voyage of discovery. He had gone about from place 
to place seeking aid, but spurned everywhere. These 
years were spent in almost hopeless anxiety, in poverty, 
and in neglect. The people of his day tliought him 



106 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

crazy. "When he passed by, they pointed to their fore- 
heads and smiled. He braved the dangers of unknown 
waters, of mutinous crews, of hostile natives, and of 
starvation. What is worse, he endured the arrows of 
jealousy, slander, and misrepresentation. He had a 
contract with the Spanish crown whereby he was to 
receive certain honors and wealth as a result of his dis- 
coveries. He could not get King Ferdinand to fulfill 
the contract. He was sent home in chains from the 
great hemisphere he had discovered, and even the honor 
of its name went to another who had no claim to it. 

Through the career of every successful man there 
runs a grim determination to do the thing in hand. 
Columbus had this determination and with it he 
triumphed. The stars hid themselves behind storms; 
the compass refused to act normally; a strange and 
terrible ocean roared; mutiny howled and jealousy 
hissed, but on one thing he was determined — he would 
do his best to accomplish the thing he had set himself 
to accomplish; and he did it. 

One of the most inspiring poems in American litera- 
ture is Joaquin Miller^s ^^ Columbus :'' — 

Behind him lay the gray Azores, 

Behind the Gate of Hercules ; 
Before him not the ghost of shores, 

Before him only shoreless seas. 
The good mate said: ^'Now must we pray, 

For lo! the very stars are gone. 
Brave Adm'r'l, speak, what shall I say?'' 

'*Why, say: 'Sail on! sail on! and on!'" 



THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 107 

"My men grow mutinous day by day; 

My men grow ghastly wan and weak." 
The stout mate thought of home; a spray 

Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek. 
" What shall I say, brave Adm'r'l, say, 

If we sight naught but seas at dawn?'' 
"Why, you shall say at break of day: 

'Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!' '' 

They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow, 

Until at last the blanched mate said: 
"Why, now not even God would know 

Should I and all my men fall dead. 
These very winds forget their way, 

For God from these dread seas is gone. 
Now speak, brave Adm'r'l, speak and say" — 

He said: "Sail on! sail on! and on!" 

They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate: 

"This mad sea shows his teeth to-night. 
He curls his lips, he lies in w^ait, 

With lifted teeth as if to bite! 
Brave Adm'r'l, say but one good word : 

What shall w^e do when hope is gone?" 
The word leapt like a leaping sword: 

"Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!" 

Then, pale and worn he kept his deck 

And peered through darkness. Ah, that night 
Of all dark nights! And then a speck — 

A light! a light! a light! a light! 
It grew, a starlit flag unfurled! 

It grew to be time's burst of dawn. 
He gained a world; he gave that world 

Its grandest lesson: "Oh! sail on!" 



CHAPTER VII 
WEAPONS AND GUNPOWDER 

Man's weapons of warfare, offensive and defensive, 
have been many and curious. David slew Goliath with 
a stone from a sling. The Scriptures tell us that Sam- 
son, the mighty man of the Bible, killed a thousand 
PhiHstines at one time with the jaw-bone of an ass. 
The study of the development of arms makes one of the 
most significant chapters in the history of civihzation. 

The use of stone weapons seems to have been uni- 
versally characteristic of the earlier races of mankind, 
as it still is distinctive of the ruder races. The weap- 
ons made from stone were necessarily few and simple. 
The most common was an ax, made from various kinds 
of stone and with varying degrees of skill. Spear-points 
and arrow-heads were made of flint. These show a 
comparatively high type of workmanship. The high- 
est efforts of the ancient stone-workers culminated in a 
leaf-shaped dagger or knife of flint, various in form but 
uniform in type. These flint daggers differed also in 
size, but seldom exceeded a foot in length. They were 
never ground or poHshed, but dehcately chipped to 
a fine, straight edge, and were often beautiful. 

In the Bronze Age several kinds of bronze daggers 
were made. The characteristic weapon of this period, 

108 




Statues Showing Knights in Armor 



no IXVEXTIOXS AND DISCOVERIES 

however, was the leaf-shaped bronze sword. ''Xo 
warUke weapon of any period is more graceful in form 
or more beautifully finished/' This sword had a very 
thin edge on both sides running from hilt to point, 
and the handle was of bone, horn, or wood. The thin- 
ness of the edge seems to have been produced mth- 
out the aid of hammer or file. The weapon was 
better fitted for stabbing and thrusting than for cutting 
with the edge. Bronze spear-points have been found, 
but throughout the Bronze Age arrow-heads were made 
of flint. There were also shields of bronze, held in the 
hand by a handle fastened to the center. The period 
of transition between the Bronze Age and the Iron Age 
is marked by an iron sword, which was similar in form 
to the leaf-shaped bronze sword. 

Homer, the great Greek bard who is supposed to have 
lived about a thousand years before the birth of Christ, 
in speaking of the wars of the Greeks, describes their 
weapons somewhat fully. They used a double-edged, 
bronze-bladed sword, the hilt and scabbard of which 
were adorned with gold and silver. In the combats of 
the Homeric age, however, the spear, lance, or javelin 
relayed the principal part; swords were used only for 
fighting at close range. Bows and arrows also were 
used. The only iron weapon specifically mentioned is 
the arrow-head. This was inserted in a split shaft, 
precisely like the flint arrow-heads of the early North 
American Indians and other modern savages. The 
defensive armor of the heroic age of Greece was en- 



WEAPONS AXD GUNPOWDER 111 

tirely of bronze. It consisted of a liclmet for tlie houd, 
cuirass for the chest, greaves for the logs, and a shield. 
The bronze cuirass was often ornamented with gold. 
The shield was round or oval in shape, very large, and 
covered with hide. The Greeks of the later or historic 
age fought chiefly with long, heavy spears. Later the 
shield was reduced in size and the sword increased in 
length. The light-armed troops were furnished with a 
light javelin having a strap or thong fastened to the 
middle to assist in hurling. A linen corselet came into 
use instead of the heavy metal cuirass. The mounted 
troops were supplied with a longer sword, a javelin, and 
a short dagger. 

The military strength of early Egypt lay in her 
archers, who fought either on foot or from chariots. 
The Egyptian bow was a little shorter than a man's 
height. The string was of hide or cord; the arrows were 
of reed, winged with three feathers and pointed with 
bronze heads, and were from two to three feet in length. 
The Egyptian archers carried a curved, broad-bladed 
sword, and a dagger or a battle-axe for combat at close 
quarters. Their defensive armor consisted of a (juilted 
head-piece and coat. They used no shield, as this would 
have interfered with the use of the bow. The infan- 
try were classified according to the weapons with which 
they fought — as spearmen, swordsmen, clubmen, and 
slingers. The spears were five or six feet long and had 
triangular or leaf-shaped heads of bronze. The spear- 
men carried shields shaped like a door with a curved 



112 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

top, having a hole in the upper portion through which 
they could look. These shields were about half as 
high as a man and were covered with hairy hide, wdth 
the hair attached. The early swords of Egypt were of 
bronze, straight, double-edged, tapering from hilt to 
point, and measuring from tw^o and a half to three feet 
in length. 

The ancient Assyrians fought with swords somewhat 
like those of Egypt. They used also bows, lances, 
spears, and javelins. Their shields were round and 
convex; and their cuirass w^as a close-fitting garment 
made of many layers of flax, plaited together or inter- 
woven, and cemented and hardened wdth glue. This 
hnen corselet was found also among the Egyptians, the 
Greeks, and the Romans. 

The characteristic weapon of the Romans, the great- 
est warriors of ancient times, was what the Romans 
themselves called the ^'pilum.'^ This weapon was a 
pike having a stout iron head carried on a rod of iron. 
The iron rod w^as about twenty inches long and termi- 
nated in a socket for the insertion of the wooden shaft, 
w^hich was a little more than three feet in length. The 
entire weapon was therefore about five feet long. The 
pilum could be hurled as a javelin with great effect. 
Piercing the shield of the enemy, the slender iron rod 
bent under the weight of the shaft, which trailed along 
the ground, making the shield useless for purposes of 
defense. When used at close quarters, the pilum had 
something of the efficiency of the modern bayonet; and 



WEAPONS AND GUNPOWDER Ui] 

when wic^ldod linnl}' iii both haiuls^ it s(m-V(m1 to wiivd off 
sword-strokos, whicli fell liarmlessly u|)()ii the long and 
strong iron neck of the weapon. No warrior of ancient 
times was more formidable than the Roman with liis 
piUim. The Romans had also swords of bronze and 
bronze armor, resembling the armor and the swords of 
the Greeks. In the prosperous days of Rome, h(4* 
legions, under one of the greatest military commandei-s 
of all time, Julius Caesar, brought nearly all the world 
of that day to the feet of their general. 

The Franks, a Germanic people who lived early in 
the Christian era and who gave their name to France, 
used the battle-ax as their chief w^eapon. It had a 
broad blade and a short handle and was used as a 
missile. It is said that a blow of an ax, when hurled, 
would pierce an enemy's shield or kill him, and that 
the Franks rarely missed their aim. They wore no 
armor, not even helmets, though they carried swords, 
round shields, and darts with barbed iron heads, which 
were used for throwing or thrusting. When this dart 
became fixed in an adversary's shield, it was the habit 
of the Frank to bound forward, i)lace a foot ui)on one 
end of the trailing dart, and, compelling the enemy to 
low^er his shield, slay him with the battle-ax. The 
Franks used also a short, straight, broad-bladed sword, 
double-edged and obtuse at the point. The military 
organization of the later Franks changed from infantry 
to cavalry, and this change gave way in time to the (M-a 
of chivalry. The superior soldiers of the time of 



114 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

Charlemagne had added to their equipment the cele- 
brated coat of mail. 

Our early Anglo-Saxon fathers fought with swords, 
spears, axes, and a heavy, single-edged knife. The 
sword was especially the weapon of the horseman, and 
was not carried by anyone under the rank of thane. 




A Knight in Action 



The infantry bore the other weapons. The early 
Anglo-Saxons do not appear to have used the bow and 
arrow, though in later times the long bow was an im- 
portant weapon in England. The Anglo-Saxons of 
olden times were not strong in cavalry. Saxon war- 
riors carried round or oval shields made of wood and 



WEAPONS AND GUNPOWDER 



115 



covered with leather. Suits of metal annoj* were worn 
for defense. 

The gallant knights of the Middle Ages fought on 
horseback, as they went about protecting the weak, 
redressing the wrongs of the injured, and upholding 
right against might. They were clad in armor of metal, 
with swords buckled to their 
sides. Mail armor of inter- 
hnked metalhc rings was used 
until the beginning of the 
fourteenth century. From this 
time to the beginning of the 
seventeenth century, armor 
was made of solid plates of 
metal. After 1600, armor was 
gradually replaced by a new 
agent of warfare, against which 
it was no protection. Likewise 
the shield, the dagger, and the 
bow gave way, though the long 
bow continued in use as an EngHsh weapon until the 
close of Queen Elizabeth's reign. 

The invention of gunpowder was one of the most far- 
reaching events of all history. This terrific substance 
has not only revolutionized warfare, but has changed 
the current of human history itself. It is not known 
who invented gunpowder, or when it was first used. 
It is a compound of saltpetre, charcoal, and sulphur; 
the proportions in which these three ingredients arc 




An Archer of the Fifteenth 
Century 



IK) IXVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

mixed vary in different countries and in different 
kinds of powders. It seems likely that powder was 
invented in the Far East, perhaps in China. Saltpetre 
comes, for the most part, from China and India, on 
whose vast plains it is found mixed with the soil. 
An ordinary wood fire kindled on ground containing 
saltpetre would bring the saltpetre into contact with 
charcoal, and thereby practically produce powder. It 
is probable that the discovery of the explosive occurred 
in this accidental way. Fireworks were used in China 
from a very early date, but it is doubtful if the Chinese, 
or any other nation of Asia, used gunpowder as a pro- 
pelling force. It was left for the Western nations to 
develop and give practical value to the discovery of 
the Chinese. 

Our first knowledge of powder as an agency of war 
dates from about the year 700 A.D., when it was used 
by the Byzantine emperors in defending Constantinople 
against the Saracens. It was employed there, however, 
not as a propelling force, but in the form of rockets or a 
fiery liquid called Greek fire. Its first real use in Europe 
as a power for propulsion was in Spain, where the Moors 
and the Christians both used some kind of artillery as 
early as the twelfth century after Christ. Gunpowder 
was first introduced into England by Roger Bacon, 
a British scientist, who was born early in the thirteenth 
century. He probably did not discover its properties 
independently, but by reading ancient manuscripts. 
Owing to the crude and uncertain methods of making 



WEAPONS AND GUNPO^^'])ER 117 

gunpowder, it did not attain mucli value until Berthold 
Scliwarz, a German monk, at about 1320 A. D. intro- 
duced an improved method of manufacture. The im- 
proved powder thus made was first used in England by 
King Edward III in his war against the Scotch in 
1327. It was perhaps used on the continent of Europe 
earlier than this, but the occasions are uncertain. The 
tubes from which the missiles were propelled were called 
"crakeys of war.'' 

Spenser called cannon ^Hhose devilish iron engines.'' 
They were probably used for the first time in field 
warfare by the English in the battle at Crecy, a small 
town in France, where on August 26, 134G, the English 
defeated the French. The artillery seemed to have 
been used in this battle merely to frighten the horses of 
the enemy, and the cannon were laughed at as inge- 
nious toys. 

From the Battle of Crecy onward, the use of gunpow- 
der spread rapidly throughout Europe, the Russians be- 
ing the last to adopt it. Saltpetre, at first used in its 
natural state, began to be produced artificially, and then 
the manufacture of powder extended among the nations. 
During the French Revolution, according to Carlyle, 
the revolutionists were driven to such extremities for 
want of powder that they scraped old cellars seeking 
material for its manufactiu*e. Many recent improve- 
ments have been made in the production of gunpowder, 
the most important resulting in the smokeless powder. 

Before the introduction of cannon using guni)Owder 



lis IXVEXTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

as a propelling force^ various machines were used in 
warfare for hurling missiles. Large stones and heavy 
darts or arrows were thrown by means of tightly twisted 
ropes, like the action of a bow, or through the aid of a 
lever and sling, ^^arious names were applied to these 
weapons, the chief of which were the ballista and the 
catapult. The balhsta hurled stones by means of a 
twisted cord or a lever; the catapult b}^ darts or arrows 
could throw a projectile half a mile. Both machines 
were used by the Romans with great effect, in both de- 
fensive and offensive warfare. In destro3dng the wall 
of a besieged town, the Romans used a battering-ram. 
It consisted of a beam of wood with a mass of bronze or 
iron on the end resembling a ram^s head. In its earliest 
form, the battering-ram was beaten against the wall 
by the soldiers; later it was suspended in a frame and 
made to swing with ropes. Another kind moved on 
rollers, the swinging movement being given to it also 
by means of ropes. The beam of the ram was from 
sixt}^ to one hundred and twenty feet long, the head 
sometimes weighed more than a ton, and as many as a 
hundred men were necessary to swing it. For the pro- 
tection of the soldiers using it, a wooden roof covered it, 
and the whole was mounted on wheels. Scarcely an}' 
wall could resist the continued blows of the battering- 
ram. The Romans were the most effective in the use 
of this engine, though thej^ borrowed it from the Greeks. 
The first cannon were clumsy and comparatively 
inefficient. They w(»re made of wooden bars held to- 



WEAPONS AND GUXPOW DER 119 

getlicr with iron hoops, and they shot balls of stone. 
Cannon of bronze were next made, and in the latter 
part of the fifteenth century iron cannon came into use. 
The next improvement was the production of cannon of 
steel, and for some years past the best artillery has been 
made of this material. After stone balls ceased to be 
used, round balls of iron were utilized. These in time 
gave way to cylindrical projectiles of steel. Originally 
cannon were loaded at the muzzle, but in recent years 
breech-loading devices have been developed, so that 
now all of the best modern guns are loaded from the 
rear. 

Within the last twenty-five years, rapid-fh^e guns 
have been developed. These have a mechanism by 
which the breech is opened and closed again by a single 
motion of a lever. The loading with projectile and 
powder is also done with one motion. The rapidity 
of firing varies from two hundred shots per minute in 
the smallest guns to one shot in two minutes in the 
largest. The largest British cannon are nearly eight- 
een inches in calibre (diameter of bore), weigh a hun- 
dred tons, are thirty-five feet long, shoot a shell weighing 
nearly a ton, consume at each charge 450 pounds of 
powder, and have the power of penetrating solid iron ar- 
mor plate to the depth of almost two feet, at a distance 
of one thousand yards. At least a year and a (|uarter is 
recjuired for making one of the great, heavy guns, and 
often a longer time. The cost of constructing one of 
the largest English cannon is about 8117,000, and it 



120 IXVEXTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

costs about $175 to fire the gun once. Some of the 
most powerful cannon may be rehed upon to hit an 
object ten feet high at a distance of about nine thousand 
yards. In battle, however, owing to conditions of at- 
mosphere and the limitations of human vision, fire 
would rarely be opened at a greater distance than 
three thousand yards, or not quite two miles. 

Guns discharged by machinery have been introduced 
within the last half century. The fire from machine 
guns is practically continuous. Several kinds have been 
invented and improved by various persons. One of 
the best types of this kind of ordnance is the Gatling 
gun, invented in 1860 by Dr. R. J. Gatling, of Indian- 
apolis. It consists of a number of parallel barrels, 
usually ten, grouped around and fastened to a central 
shaft. Each barrel has its own mechanism for firing. 
As the barrels revolve, loaded cartridges are fed into 
them by machinery and the empty cartridges are 
ejected. By means of an automatic mechanism, the bul- 
lets may be scattered over such an arc in front as may 
be desired, or concentrated upon a narrower range. 
The Gatling gun can fire at the rate of 1200 shots per 
minute; it literally hails bullets. 

The greatest name connected with the manufacture 
of modern cannon is that of Hcrr Alfred Krupp, of Ger- 
many, who was born at Essen in 1812 in humble 
circumstances. He erected the first Bessemer steel 
works in Germany in the city of his birth, and was the 
pioneer in the introduction of steel for the manufacture 



WEAPONS AND GUNPOWDER 



121 



of heavy guns. He believed in the utihty of steel when 
the great governments of the earth had no faith in it. 
The works at Essen cover in all about one thousand 
acres, and in thc^ni twenty thousand persons find em- 
ployment. To Krui)p Germany owed much, and was 
not negligent in paying him honor. His factory sup- 
plied artillery to nearly all the nations of Europe. He 
died in July, 1887, and was 
succeeded in the manage- 
ment of the works by his 
son Alfred, who also died 
recently. The plant still 
continues in operation. 

The first portable or hand 
gun consisted of a simple 
iron or brass tube fastened M 
to a straight stock of wood. 
H^^rsemen used the first 
guns, and fired them by placing the end of the stock 
against the breast and letting the barrel rest on a 
fork fastened to the saddle. The gun was discharged 
by applying a lighted match to a touch-hole in the 
top of the barrel. One kind of powder was used 
for priming; another for firing. Before the inven- 
tion of cartridges, the powder and bullets were 
loaded separately at the muzzle, with some kind of 
packing between. The colonial rifles in America were 
loaded in this way. In a fight at close (juarters, after 
a gun had been once discharged, the soldier had to fight 




Musketeer and Pikeman of the 
Early Seventeenth Century 



122 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

with his sword. About the middle of the seventeenth 
century^ the bayonet was invented^ taking its name 
from the town of Bayonne, in France, where the in- 
ventor Hved. 

The hghted match which soldiers originally carried 
for igniting their guns gave way to the flint and steel; 
and in 1807 a Scotch clergyman named Forsyth ob- 
tained a patent which led to the invention of the per- 
cussion cap. This improvement revolutionized the 
mechanism of firearms. Many improvements have 
been made recently in arms, so that cartridges contain- 
ing cap, powder, and projectile are fed automatically 
into guns so dehcately constructed that they have great 
carrying power, precision, and rapidity. 

From the dawn of human existence man has sought 
by some method or other to overcome natural barriers 
of water. The idea of the ship is as old almost as the 
race itself. The most primitive form of vessel was the 
raft. In prehistoric ages men made vessels by hollow- 
ing out the trunks of trees, either with fire or with such 
crude tools as they possessed. The Latin poet Virgil 
mentions ^'hollowed alders'' used for boats, and indeed 
canoes were made from hollowed tree trunks as long 
ago as the Stone Age. The next step forward in the 
art of shipbuilding was the bark canoe. In countries 
where bark is scarce, small vessels were made of skins, 
felt, or canvas covered with pitch. In process of time, 
boats were made by fastening timbers together, and in 



WEAPONS AND (U NPOWDKH 123 

this method the* basic ixrinciplo of hkxUm'u shipbuilding 
was reached. 

It is the I'c^latioii of ships to purpos(^s of war thai in- 
terests us here. When the curtain rose for tlie (h'ania 
of civihzation in Rgyi)t five thousand years ago, men 
were fighting at sea. The oldest ships of which we have 
knowledge were Egyptian. The vessels of war were 
then propelled by oarsmen, who were protected from 
the missiles of the enemy by planks. On the Egyptian 
war-galleys there was often a projecting bow to which 
was attached a metal head for ramming the vessels of 
the enemy. 

Our knowledge of Greek fighting ships — thanks to 
Greek literature — is fairly full. In the time of Homer, 
about ten centuries before Christ, Greek men-of-war 
carried crews of from fifty to one hundred and twenty 
men, nearly all of whom took part in the labor of row- 
ing. A mihtary boat called the ''bireme^' came into 
use in Greece about six or seven centuries before 
Christ. The word means a vessel with two rows or 
banks of oarsmen on each side, one row above the 
other. This disposition of rowers was evidently for 
the purpose of securing the largest possible number in 
the least possible space. It is probable that the 
Greeks did not originate the bireme, but l:)orr()W(Ml 
the idea from the Phoenicians or possil)ly from Egypt. 
When Athens was at the zenith of her glory, the princi- 
])al war vessel was the ^'trireme/' a ship witli tliree 
rows of oarsmen to the side, each rising above another. 



124 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

Larger ships were subsequently constructed with four, 
five, and even sixteen banks of rowers to a side, tier 
above tier. 

The Romans, although they were so powerful in 
land warfare, were not strong in naval achievement 
until after the First Punic War. In this war they 
learned the art of naval construction from their 
enemies, the Carthaginians. A Carthaginian ^'quin- 
quereme,^' or boat with five banks of oars, drifted to 
the Roman coast. The Romans copied it, set up frames 
on dry land in which crews were taught to row, and 
in sixty days from the time the trees were felled they 
had built and manned a fleet. Later the Romans 
used grappling hooks with which they bound together 
their own and an opposing ship. They then boarded 
the enemy's vessel and carried on the fight at close 
quarters. These tactics gave the Romans command 
of the sea, and their war galley came to be the supreme 
object of terror in the naval history of Roman days. 

Sails and wind superseded rowers as the motive force 
of ships. Then came steam. But after gunpowder 
and steam had worked a revolution in the modes of 
naval combat, vessels of war continued to be made 
of wood. 

The first fight between iron ships in the history of 
the world was fought on the ninth of March, 18(32, in 
Hampton Roads, near Norfolk, Virginia, during the 
Civil War in America. The battle was the combat 
between the Merrimac and the Monitor. This engage- 



WEAPONS AND GUNPOWDER 125 

ment marked the end of wooden navies. Thenceforth 
the nations of earth were to make their warships of 
iron and steel. 

Among the largest battleships built for the United 
States navy are the Delaware and the North Dakota. 
Each of these battleships is five hundred and ten feet 
long, a little more than eighty-five feet wide, sinks 
to the depth of nearly twenty-seven feet in the water, 
and travels at the rate of twenty-one knots per hour. 
Each vessel weighs twenty thousand tons, and is 
armed with ten great guns a foot in diameter at the 
mouth. The North Dakota required 4688 tons of 
steel armor at a cost of more than four hundred dollars 
per ton. Each of its great twelve-inch guns cost 
nearly $110,000, weighs fifty-two tons, and hurls a 
projectile w^eighing 850 pounds a distance of twelve 
miles. Three hundred and eighty-five pounds of 
powder are consumed at a single discharge. At a 
distance of more than a mile and a half the projectiles 
of the North Dakota will penetrate steel armor to a 
depth of nearly twenty inches. When these projectiles 
leave the guns, they fly through the air at the rate of 
2,800 feet in a second. When one hundred shots have 
been fired from one of these guns, it is worn so that 
it will be useless until repaired. The cost of a single 
discharge from one of these guns is about $350. 

Submarine navigation has always been attended by 
the most woeful catastrophes, but in spite of numerous 
accidents the development of the submarine boat has 



126 IXVEXTIOXS AND DISCOVERIES 

progressed uninterruptedly. Each new model presents 
new preventive devices. Flasks of oxylithic powder 
are carried for purifying the air in the water-tight com- 
partments in which the crews live while the boat is 
below the surface of the water. There is also a special 
apparatus for signalhng other vessels or the shore, in 
case of danger. In 1904 three vessels, designated X, 
Y, and Z, were completed, which could achieve sub- 
mersion in the short space of two minutes. The boats 
were armed with six torpedoes each. France owns the 
largest fleet of under-water warships in the world. 
England stands next, and the United States govern- 
ment is third. 



CHAPTER Yin 
ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES AND INVENTIONS 

'' When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, 
the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained, 
w^hat is man, that thou art mindful of him?'' The 
Hebrew psalmist feels the insignificance of man com- 
pared with the infinitude of the heavens. Victor 
Hugo expresses the opposite thought: ^^ There is one 
spectacle grander than the sea — that is the sky; there 
is one spectacle grander than the sky — that is the inte- 
rior of the soul/' 

There is nothing more dignified, more sublime, 
more awful, than a contemplation of the heavens. In 
point of grandeur, astronomy may be regarded as king 
of the sciences. It is also their patriarch. Thousands 
of years before the birth of Christ the priests of Chaldea, 
from the tops of their flat-roofed temples, studied the 
stars and laid the foundations of the science of astron- 
omy. The heavens, with their teeming, whirling, en- 
ding congregation, obeying laws that have no 'Varia- 
bleness neither shadow of turning" do, indeed, ''de- 
clare the glory of God." 

From the earliest times the stars were sui)i)Osed to 
influence for good and ill the lives of men. There were 
supposed to be stars of good luck and of bad omen. 
The cool, calculating Cassius tells Brutus, 

^^The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, 

But in ourselves, that we are underlin;;)^." 

127 



128 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

When you look up into the heavens at the flicker- 
ing dots of hght which we call the stars, you are looking 
at worlds, many of them far larger than our earth. 
They seem small because of vast distances from us. 
Our own solar system, great as it is, in comparison 
with the celestial universe is but a clod in an acre. 
At the center of our system is the sun, a huge ball of 
fiery matter 93,000,000 miles from the earth, and as 
large as 330,000 worlds like ours. Circling around the 
sun hke maddened horses around a race course are 
eight planets. These planets, with the sun and some 
comets, constitute our solar system; our system, for how 
many solar systems there are in space no one knows. 
These planets, in their order outward from the sun, 
are Mercury, Venus, our Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, 
Uranus, and Neptune. Of these. Mercury is the small- 
est and Jupiter is the largest. The following table 
shows some interesting facts about the planets : 



Name 



Diameter 
in miles 



Number of 
planets re- 
quired to 
equal sun 
in size 



Distance 

from sun in 

millions of 

miles 



Time re- 
quired for 
one revolu- 
tion around 
sun in days 



Velocity in 

orbit, miles 

per hour 



Mercury . . 


3,008 


Venus .. . . 


7,480 


Earth 


7,926 


Mars 


4,999 


Jupiter . . . 


88,439 


Saturn. . .. 


75,036 


Uranus. . . 


30,875 


Neptune... 


37,205 



5,000,000 

425,000 

332,260 

3,093,500 

1,048 

3,502 

22,600 

19,400 



36 

66 

92 

141 

483 

886 

1,783 

2,794 



88 

225 

365i 

687 

4,332 

10,759 

30,687 

60,127 



107,012 
78.284 
66,579 
53.938 
29,203 
21,560 
15,202 
12,156 



ASTROx\OMICAL DISCOVERIES 129 

The moon is 240,000 miles from iho euilli, nnd it 
would recjuire nearly 24,500,000 moons to ecjuul the 
sun in size. Other planets have moons, some of them 
several. If you lived on the planet Mercury, your 
annual birthday would come around about once in 
three of our months. If you had your home out on 
the border land of the solar system, on the planet 
Neptune, you would have a birthday once in about 
165 years, as we count time on the earth. It will be 
observed that the closer the planet is to the sun, the 
faster it travels in its orbit. This fact is due to the 
power of gravitation toward the sun. This strange 
influence drives the planets around the sun, and the 
nearer the planet is to the sun the greater is the power 
and consequently the faster the revolution. The 
law of gravitation was discovered by Sir Isaac Newton. 

Newton was born in 1042 in Lincolnshire, England. 
His father was a farmer, and the farmhouse in which 
the son was born is still preserved. He was educated 
at a grammar school in Lincolnshire, and later entered 
Trinity College, Cambridge, from which he was gradu- 
ated in 1665. Early in life he displayed a great liking 
for mathematics. Within a few years after he entered 
college, he had mastered the leading mathematical 
works of the day and had begun to make some progress 
in original mathematical investigation. 

Newton's great life work — the acliievement wliich 
insured to his name a place among the immortals — ■ 
was suggested to him by accident. As the story goes, 

9 



130 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

while he was walking one day in a garden, he saw an 
apple fall from a tree. He speculated upon the reasons 
for its falling, and ultimately concluded that the same 
force which causes an apple to fall from a tree holds 
the heavenly bodies in their places. Further investiga- 
tion brought him to the unfolding of this general law 
of gravitation: ^^ Every body in nature attracts every 
other body with a force directly as its mass, and in- 
versely as the square of its distance.'^ This law is the 
greatest law of nature. It is the central fact of the 
physical universe, the cement of the material world, 
the mighty, mystic shepherdess of space, that keeps 
the planets from wandering off alone. It is this awful, 
silent power reaching out from the enormous mass of 
the sun, that lashes the planets in their furious race, 
and yet holds them tightly reined in their orbits. 

Newton w^as one of the greatest mathematicians, 
scientists, and thinkers in the history of the world. 
He died at Kensington, England, on March 20, 1727, 
and was buried in Westminster Abbey, with the illus- 
trious dead of Great Britain. 

The operation of this law of gravitation pointed 
the way to the discovery of the planet Neptune, which 
is considered the greatest triumph of mathematical 
astronomy since the days of Newton. Prior to the 
discovery of Neptune, Uranus was the outermost 
known planet of the solar system. It was noticed that 
Uranus was being pulled out of its proper path. It 
was being tugged away by some strange force beyond 



ASTRONOMICAL DISCO VERIES 



1.31 




Sir Isaac Newton 



the edge of the known planetary S3^stem. As the 
result of a skilful and laborious investigation, Levorrior, 
a young French astronomer, wrote in substance to an 
assistant in the observatory at Berlin: ''Direct your 
telescope to a point on the ecliptic in the constellation 
of Aquarius in longitude 320"^, and you will find within 



132 IXVEXTIONS AXD DISCOVERIES 

a degree of that place a new planet^ looking like a star 
of the ninth magnitude^ and having a perceptible disk.'' 
Leverrier did not know of the existence of such a planet. 
He calculated its existence, location, and mass -from 
the fact that some such body must be there, to account 
for the disturbance caused to Uranus. The telescope 
in the Berlin Observatory was directed to the place 
designated by Leverrier, and on the night of September 
23, 1846, in exact accordance with his prediction and 
within half an hour after the astronomers had begun 
looking, Neptune was discovered within less than one 
degree from the exact spot where Leverrier had calcu- 
lated it must be. Such are the triumphs of the human 
mind. Such are the failures of nature to hide her 
secrets from the inquiry of man, even behind untold 
millions of miles. 

According to the principles of gravitation as unfolded 
by Newton, the power of attraction decreases directly 
as the square of the distance between the sun and a 
planet. Neptune, being on the outer rim of the system 
and hence farthest away from the sun, moves in its 
orbit around the sun more sluggishly than any other 
planet. Life such as we know it on the earth could not 
exist on Neptune; it would be too cold. The light and 
heat from the sun on Neptune are only one nine hun- 
dredth part of what we get on the earth. But even so, 
the sunlight falling upon Neptune is equal in power to 
seven hundred of our full moons. It was thought that 
Uranus was the last planet of the solar system until 



ASTRONOMK^VL DISCO VERIES 133 

Neptune was found. AMietlier Nei)tune is tlio last, 
or whether other worlds are roarnin^;* around beyond 
it, is not known. 

Ptolemy, who was one of the most celebrated 
astronomers of earlier times, was born in Egypt about 
a century and a half after Christ. According to the 
Ptolemaic system of astronomy, which Ptolemy ex- 
pounded but did not originate, the earth was considered 
the center of the universe, and around it the other 
planets and the sun were believed to revolve. A 
passage in the Bible in which Joshua commanded the 
sun to stand still indicates that the old Hebrew^s 
believed the sun circled around the earth. The Ptole- 
maic theory did not account for all the facts observed 
by astronomers, but for nearly fifteen centuries it 
held practically universal sway over the belief of men, 
until another thinker set the matter right. 

Nicholas Copernicus was l)orn in Prussia, February 
l^n^743.') He studied mathematics, medicine, theology, 
ana painting, but his greatest achievements were in 
astronomy. He made holes in the walls of his room, 
through which he might observe the stars. Copernicus 
did not believe in the theory of Ptolemy that the earth 
w^as the center of the universe, ])ut held that the solar 
system had for its center the sun, and that around it 
the planets, including the earth, revolved. In working 
out this belief, which science has sul)se(iuently shown 
to be correct, he laid the foundations of the modern 
system of astronomy. 



134 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

The book in which Copernicus expounded his -theory 
was begun in 1507 and was completed in 1530. He 
could not be induced to pubhsh it, however, until 
shortly before his death. On May 24, 1543, he lay 
dying in Frauenburg. A few hours before his death, 
when reason, memory, and life were slipping away 
from him, the first printed copy of his book was borne to 
Frauenburg and placed in the great astronomer's 
hands. He touched the book, looked at it for a time, 
and seemed conscious of what it was. Quickly after- 
ward he lapsed into insensibility and was gone. 

Johann Kepler, who was born in Germany in 1571, 
contributed several important facts to astronomy. He 
studied the motions and laws of the celestial bodies. 
Copernicus taught that the planets revolved around' 
the sun in circular orbits, but Kepler discovered that 
their paths are elhpses. He also found that the nearer 
the planets are to the sun the faster they travel. Kep- 
ler's discoveries were embodied in three great laws 
of astronomy known as Kepler's laws. These furnished 
the foundation for Newton's discoveries and are the 
basis of modern astronomy. Kepler died in Novem- 
ber, 1630. 

Many of the wonderful discoveries that have been 
made in the field of astronomy could not have been 
possible without the telescope, the most important 
instrument used by astronomers. The first part of 
the word is the same Greek adverb meaning ''afar,'' 
found in telegraph and telephone; the last part is derived 



ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES 135 

from a Greek verb meaning "to see.'' Tlic telescope, 
therefore, is an instrument for seeing objects that arc 
far off. It is a long tube with lenses so arranged as to 
make objects appear much larger than they would 




Galileo 



to the naked eye. The telescope was invented by a 
Dutch optician named Hans Lippershey about three 
hundred years ago. The Italian scientist Galileo, 
who was born at Pisa in February, 15G4, heard of the 



13() INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

invention, began studying the principles upon which 
it depends, and greatly improved it. Galileo was the 
first to use the telescope for astronomical purposes. 
With it he discovered the satelhtes of Jupiter, the 
spots on the sun, and the hills and valleys of the moon. 

At the present time the largest telescopes in the 
world are made and owned in America. The largest 
is the Yerkes telescope, belonging to the University of 
Chicago and located on the shores of Lake Geneva, 
Wisconsin. Microscopes, opera glasses, and other 
magnifying instruments depend upon the same princi- 
ples as the telescope. 

One of the most astounding of man's tools is the 
spectroscope, an instrument used for analyzing light. 
Through a knowledge of chemistry scientists can estab- 
lish scientific relations between different substances 
and the light which they emit. By analyzing the 
light from the heavenly bodies with the aid of the 
spectroscope, and comparing this result with the hght 
sent out from different known kinds of matter, man 
can stand on this little flying speck of matter we call 
the earth and discover of what substances the stars 
are made. 

One of the most interesting questions arising in a 
study of the heavenly bodies is whether or not any of 
them besides the earth are inhabited. Is there any 
good reason for supposing that our pigmy planet, so 
insignificant compared with many celestial bodies, is 
the only one containing life? On the other hand, life 



ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES 137 

such as we know it could not exist on some of the other 
phmets. Mercury would bo too hot; Neptune too 
cold. Climatic conditions on Mars arc most nearly 
hke those of the earth. Within recent years the 
telescope has revealed on the surface of Mars a number 
of pecuhar, regular lines. Many scientists hold that 
these are artificial canals or irrigation ditches, and 
that the planet must be inhabited. The theory does 
not seem at all unreasonable. But the most that can 
be safely said is that if any of the other planets ai'e 
inhabited; the most likely one is Mars. 



CHAPTER IX 
THE COTTON-GIN 

Another great invention is the cotton-gin. It is 
great because of the commercial prosperity which it 
brought to the Southern states; because it cheapened 
and extended the use of an almost necessary article of 
life; and because of its effect on American history. 
The inventor was an American, Eli ^ATiitney. 

The word gin is an abbreviation of engine, and in 
former days was often used to denote a handy mechan- 
ical de\dce of any kind. The cotton-gin is a machine 
for removing the seed from the fiber of the cotton- 
plant. Its essential parts are a number of saws which 
tear the fiber from the seeds, some stiff brushes used 
to remove the fiber from the saws, and a revolving 
fan which blows the hghter substance of the cotton 
away from the saws and brushes. The original cotton 
gin has been little changed by improvement since its in- 
vention. It seems to be one of those inventions which 
have been perfected by the inventor himself. 

Eli AVhitney was born in Westborough, Worcester 
County, Massachusetts, December 8, 1765. His father 
was a thrifty farmer. Nature bestowed upon the son 
marked abihty in the use of tools. While he was yet 

138 



THE COTTON-GIX i:]0 

a child, his inventive genius manifested itself. Before 
he was ten years old, he could use every tool in the farm 
workshop with the ease and skill of an old workman. 
He made a violin before he was twelve and later he 
came to be noted in the neighborhood as a skilful 
mender of fiddles. He also turned his attention to 
making nails, which in Revolutionary days were made 
by hand; and became the best nail-maker in Worcester 
County. When he was twenty-four years of age, a 
desire for a college education possessed him. His 
father agreed to furnish the money to pay for his 
schooling, with the stipulation that the son should pay 
it back. He entered Yale, where he was graduated 
in 1792. 

After graduation Whitney w^ent South to act as 
tutor in a private family. Upon arrival at his destina- 
tion, he found that the position was already filled. At 
that time the wddow of General Nathanael Greene, 
who fought in the Revolutionary War, lived near 
Savannah, Georgia. She had become interested in 
young Whitney and in\T[ted him to make her planta- 
tion his home. She noted his inventive skill, and one 
day when a group of Georgia planters was discussing 
at her home the desirabihty of a machine for removing 
cotton-seeds from the fiber, Mrs. Greene said: ''Gentle- 
men, apply to my friend, Mr. Whitney; he can make 
anything. '^ Whitney was called in and the planters 
laid the matter of the machine before him. At this 
time he had never even seen cotton fiber. But he 



140 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

made up his mind to try what he could do toward 
solving the problem. 

He went to Savannah and searched among the ware- 
houses and flat-boats for samples of cotton. Mrs. 
Greene encouraged him in his undertaking and gave 
him a room in the basement of her house for his work- 
shop. Here he shut himself up with his task, and was 
heard early and late hammering, sawing, and filing. 
No one was admitted to the room but Mrs. Greene 
and Phineas Miller, the tutor of Mrs. Greene's children. 
At the outset Whitney had neither money nor tools. 
The money was supphed by an old college friend; the 
tools Whitney made himself. He could procure no 
wive in Savannah for constructing his machine, and 
was compelled to make his own, which he did with 
much perseverance and skill. 

In 1793 the gin was sufficiently completed to con- 
vince the inventor that it would be a complete success. 
Mrs. Greene invited a number of distinguished planters 
and merchants to witness the working of the machine. 
The spectators were not slow in reahzing the success 
and the significance of the invention. They saw that 
with this little machine one man could separate as much 
cotton from the seed in one day as he could separate 
by hand in a whole winter. With the gin the cotton 
grown on a large plantation could be separated in a 
few days; by hand, the separation would require a 
hundred workmen for several months. 

One dark night some unscrupulous persons broke 



THE COTTOX-GIN 141 

open the shed in wliicli the unfinished machine had Ixhmi 
placed and carried it away. Filled with rage and d(*- 
spair at the wrong which had been done him, Whitney 
left Georgia and went to Connecticut to complete 
his invention. But he had scarcely left Savannah 
w^hen two other claimants for the honor of the invention 
appeared in Georgia. A few weeks later a gin very 
closely resembhng Whitney's came out. His stolen 
gin was do,ubtless used as a model by these false 
claimants. 

On March 14, 1794, Whitney received a patent on 
his gin. Phineas Miller, who had become the husband of 
Mrs. Greene, entered into a partnership with Whitney 
for managing the new invention. Whitney was to 
manufacture the gins in the North and Miller was to 
furnish the capital and attend to the interests of the 
business in the South. They planned not to sell ma- 
chines or patent rights, but to make and own the gins, 
loaning them to planters for a rental of one pound in 
every three pounds of cotton ginned. They would 
have been wiser if they had manufactured and sold the 
machines outright. In the first place, it required a 
larger capital than the firm had to manufacture the 
necessary number of machines. In the second place, 
no one firm could make gins fast enough to supply 
the rapidly increasing demand, and consequently 
great encouragement was given to infringements on 
the patent rights. Unending troubles beset the new 
firm. Whitney himself was a victim to severe illness 



142 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

in the winter of 1794. Scarlet fever raged that year 
in New Haven, Connecticut^ where the manufacturing 
was being done, and many of the workmen in the gin 




Eli Whitney 



factory were unable to work. In 1795 Whitney was 
again seized with severe sickness, and to add to the 
vexations of the business, the books, papers, and 
machinery were destroyed by fire. Besides all this, 
rival claimants circulated a report that Whitney's 
gin ruined the fiber of the cotton, and that for this 
reason cotton ginned by the patent process was discrim- 



THE COTTON-GIX 143 

inated against in the markets of England. Anotlu^' 
gin which did its work l^y crushing the seeds between 
rollers and leaving the crushed seeds in the fiber was 
represented as superior to Whitney's machine. 

In speaking of his troubles Whitney said: ^'The 
difficulties with which I have had to contend have 
originated principally in the want of a disposition in 
mankind to do justice. My invention was new and 
distinct from every other; it stood alone. It was not 
interwoven with anything before known; and it can 
seldom happen that an invention or improvement is so 
strongly marked, and can be so clearly and specifically 
identified; and I have always believed that I should 
have had no difficulty in causing my rights to be re- 
spected, if it had been less valuable and been used only 
by a small portion of the community. But the use of 
this machine being immensely profitable to almost 
every planter in the cotton districts, all were interested 
in trespassing on the patent right, and each kept the 
other in countenance. . . At one time but few men 
in Georgia dared to come into court and testify to 
the most simple facts within their knowledge relative 
to the use of the machine. In one instance I had great 
difficulty in proving that the machine had been used 
in Georgia, although at the same moment there were 
three separate sets of this machinery in motion within 
fifty yards of the building in which the court sat, and 
all so near that the rattle of the wheels was distinctly 
heard on the steps of the court house. '^ 



144 IXVEXTIOXS AXD DISCOVERIES 

AMiitne}^ never received fair and proper compensa- 
tion for his invention. The machine itself was stolen; 
others sought to rob him of his honor; he was opposed 
by an unHmited train of vexations; and after the ex- 
piration of his patent he was never able to secure a 
renewal. 

The effect of the invention of the cotton-gin was 
far-reaching, industrially and historically. In 1807, 
at a session of the United States District Court held in 
Savannah, Georgia, the inventor finally obtained 
judgment against the persons who had stolen his inven- 
tion. In the opinion rendered in favor of AMiitney, 
Judge Johnson said of the cotton-gin: ^^Is there a 
man who hears us who has not experienced its utility? 
The whole interior of the Southern states was languish- 
ing, and its inhabitants were emigrating for the want 
of some object to engage their attention and employ 
their industry, when the invention of this machine 
at once opened new views to them which set the whole 
country in active motion. Individuals who were 
depressed with poverty and sunk in idleness have 
suddenly risen to wealth and respectability. Our 
debts have been paid off, our capitals have increased, 
and our lands have trebled themselves in value. "We 
cannot express the weight of the obligation the country 
owes to this invention. The extent of it cannot now 
be seen. Some faint presentiment may be formed 
from the reflection that cotton is rapidly supplanting 
wool, flax, silk, and even furs, in manufactures, and 



THE rOTTOX-GIX 145 

may one day profitably supply the use of specie in our 
East India trade. Our sister states also participate 
in the benefits of this invention; for besides affording 
the raw material for their manufactures, the bulkiness 
and quantity of the article afford a valuable employ- 
ment for their shipping. '^ 

In the South 'Totton is king.'' The rise of the 
cotton industry dates from the invention of Eli Whit- 
ney's cotton-gin. Before its invention the labor of 
removing the seed from the fiber was so tedious that 
the growth of the cotton was not profitable. Partly 
because of this fact and partly because the Revolu- 
tionary War was just over^ the South lay dormant; 
its plantations were heavily mortgaged, its people 
were moving away in streams. Then came a little 
machine that awoke the South from its sleep and made 
it rouse itself. It brought energy, hope, and prosper- 
ity, where before were languor, indifference, and stag- 
nation. It increased the exportation of American cot- 
ton from less than 190,000 pounds in 1791 to 41,000,000 
pounds in 1803. 

From the historical point of view the invention of the 
cotton-gin was tremendous in its influence. This 
machine multiplied by many times the demand in the 
South for slave labor and made slaves far more profit- 
able. One writer has said of Whitney: ''He was, 
thi'ough his invention, probably one of the most potent 
agencies for the extension of slavery and the terrible 
struggle that marked the first half-century of our 

• 10 



14G INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

nation's existence. AVliilc he was quietly sleeping 
in his gravC; the very earth was shaken with the tread 
of contending armies that he had done more than any 
other one man to call forth to battle; for there is little 
doubt that but for the invention of the cotton-gin 
slavery would not have lived out the century of the 
Revolution/' Macaulay says: ''What Peter the Great 
did to make Russia dominant, Eli Whitney's invention 
of the cotton-gin has more than equaled in its relation 
to the power and progress of the United States.'' In 
the light of the wonderful, widespread material growth 
and prosperity that have come to the whole of our 
country in recent years, Macaulay's statement is 
overdrawn. But as matters were when it was written 
by the great Englishman, it was probably true. 

Whitney achieved much success as the inventor of 
improved methods of manufacturing firearms. He 
was the first to conceive the plan of making the differ- 
ent parts of firearms by machinery, so that any part 
of a weapon would fit any other like weapon equally 
well. This principle has made possible the production 
of cheap watches, clocks, and sewing machines. He 
died in New Haven, Connecticut, January 8, 1825. 



CHAPTER X 
ANAESTHETICS 

If those inventions and discoveries out of which 
have come widespread safety, happiness, or prosperity 
to mankind are to be considered great, then Dr. 
Morton's discovery of anaesthetics and its apphcation 
to surgery is entitled to a high place among the 
world's discoveries and inventions. The pain that 
has been destroyed, the hves that have been saved, 
the sorrow that has been averted, give their testimony 
to the value of this discovery to humanity. 

An anaesthetic is administered to produce temporaiy 
insensibility to pain. At least something of anaes- 
thetics was known to the ancients. Homer mentions 
nepenthe, a potion w^liich was said to make persons 
forget their pains and sorrows. The word appears 
occasionally in literature. In '^Evangeline'' Long- 
fellow refers to it in this line : 

''Crown us with asphodel flowers, that are wet with 
the dews of nepenthe/' 

Virgil and other classical writers mention a mythical 
river Lethe which was supposed to surround Hades. 
Souls passing over to the hai)py fields of Elysium first 
di^ank from this river, whose waters caused them to 

147 



148 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

forget their sorrows. Milton speaks of the mythical 
stream in the following passage from ''Paradise Lost:" 

^'Far off from these a slow and silent stream, 
Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls her watery 
labyrinth.'^ 

Herodotus wTote that it w^as the practice of the 
Scythians to inhale the vapors of a certain kind of 
hemp to produce intoxication. The use of the man- 
drake plant as an anaesthetic is spoken of as far back 
as Pliny, the Roman historian. The sleep-producing 
effects of the mandragora or mandrake are alluded to 
by Shakespeare. He also frequently mentions in a 
general w^ay draughts that act as ansesthetics, without 
making clear their specific natures. An old Chinese 
manuscript indicates that a physician of that country 
named Hoa-tho in the third century after Christ used 
a preparation of hemp as an anaesthetic in surgical 
operations. Although the ancients had knowledge 
of anaesthetics of one kind or other, the practice of 
anaesthesia never became general, and surgeons of the 
ancient world appear to have looked upon it with 
disfavor. 

When in modern times Joseph Priestley, the English 
scientist (born in 1733, died 1804) gave great impetus 
to chemical research by his discoveries in that science, 
the nature of gases and vapors w^as more and more 
closely studied. The l)clief soon sprang up that many 
gases and vapors would ultimately become of great 



ANAESTHETICS 149 

value in medicine and surgery. In 1800 Sir Humphry 
Davy experimented with nitrous oxide gas, called 
^'laughing gas/' and discovered its anaesthetic qualities. 
He suggested its use in surgery, but for practically half a 
century his suggestion passed unheeded. Other scien- 
tists experimented with greater or less success, seek- 
ing to find something that would alleviate physical 
pain; but to Dr. William T. G. Morton, an American, 
belongs the credit for the practical introduction of 
anaesthetics into modern surgery. 

Dr. Morton was born in Charlton, Massachusetts, 
August 9, 1819. His ancestors were of Scotch ex- 
traction. He passed his early years in farm work. 
At the age of thirteen he entered an academy at Oxford, 
Massachusetts, where he remained only a few months, 
attending school thereafter at Northfield and Leicester. 
His father's financial condition caused him to leave 
school in 183G and enter the employ of a publishing 
firm in Boston. Deciding to engage in the practice 
of dentistry, in 1840 he took a course in the Balti- 
more College of Dental Surgery. Two years after- 
ward he began the practice of his profession in Boston. 
As dentistry at that time was in its beginnings 
as a distinct profession, Dr. Morton took up, in addition 
to it, the study of general medicine and surgery in the 
Harvard Medical School. 

In the da3^s prior to the use of anaesthetics, the 
operations of dental surgery were attended l)y much 
pain. Dr. Morton began seeking some means for allevi- 



150 IXVEXTIOXS AND DISCOVERIES 

ating it. In the course of his investigations he became 
acquainted with the effects of sulphuric ether as a 
local anaesthetic, and frequently used this drug in minor 
operations. On one occasion he apphed it with unusual 
freedom in the treatment of a very sensitive tooth 
Observing how completely the tissues were benumbed 
by the ether, he conceived the idea of bringing the entire 
system under its influence, thereby producing tempo- 
rary insensibility in all the sensory nerves. The most 
serious problem with which he had to deal was the 
manner of applying the ether. Although the soporific 
tendencies of both ether and nitrous oxide gas w^ere 
well knowm, it had not been proved that they could be 
inhaled in suflSciently large quantities, or, if so, that 
they would produce perfect insensibility. After a 
long series of experiments with various animals, Dr. 
Morton succeeded in fully establishing the narcotic 
power of ether. 

On October 16, 1846, he made his first public demon- 
stration of the new discovery in the operating room of 
the Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, when he 
painlessly removed a tumor from the jaw of a patient. 
This operation was wholly convincing to the medical 
profession, and created profound public interest. Dr. 
Morton was brought into immediate prominence. A 
meeting of the leading physicians of Boston was held 
to choose an appropriate name for the new process. 
A long list of words was presented, from which Dr. 
Morton selec^ted the t(^rni leflieon, related to the Lethe 



AN.lvSTlI]^]TlCS 



151 



of Virgil and the classical writers. The words ancEsthetic 
and ancesthesia were coined from the Greek by Dr. 
OHver Wendell Holmes, the American poet and physi- 
cian, who was then living in Boston. The words pro- 
posed by Dr. Holmes have become the established 



! 


1 


^^^r V ^BtT 


[ 

j 

\ 

i 


1 




:■ 







Dr. William T. G. Mohton 



terms of the subject, sui)erseding the letheon of the 
discoverer. 

Dr. Morton secm^ed a patent on his discovery, but 
derived little pecuniary })r()fit from it. Although he 
permitted the free use of his anaesthetic in cliaritable 



152 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

institutions, his patent was frequently infringed. He 
vainly applied to Congress for compensation in 1846 
and 1849. A bill to give him one hundred thousand 
dollars as a national testimonial of his contribution 
to the welfare of the race was introduced into Congress 
in 1852 and defeated. Measures in his behalf at sessions 
of Congress in 1853 and 1854 were likewise voted down. 
The only money that ever came to Dr. Morton for his 
discovery was a small prize from the French Academy 
of Sciences and the sum of one thousand dollars from 
the trustees of the Massachusetts General Hospital. 
The governments of Russia and of Norway and Sweden 
conferred upon him certain awards of honor in recog- 
nition of his great contribution to science. 

He died in New York City, July 15, 1868, and was 
buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Mass- 
achusetts, perhaps the most beautiful and illustrious 
of American burial places. 

The monument of Dr. Morton in Mount Auburn 
bears thjs inscription: ^'William T. G. Morton, inven- 
tor and revealer of anaesthetic inhalation, by whom 
pain in surgery was averted and annulled; before 
whom, in all time, surgery was agony; since whom, 
science has control of pain.'' He is included among 
the fifty-three illustrious sons of Massachusetts whose 
names are inscribed upon the dome of the new Hall 
of Representatives in the State House at Boston; and 
is among the five hundred noted men whose names 
adorn the facade of the Boston Public Library. 



ANAESTHETICS ir>:i 

• 

The news of Morton's discovery reached EngUind 
December 17, 184(). Within five days ether was in 
use as an ana}sthetic by the English dentists and 
surgeons. A year later Sir J. Y. Simpson, of Edin- 
burgh discovered the anaesthetic properties of chloro- 
form, which has since that time been the preferred 
anaesthetic in Europe. Ether has continued in general 
use in America. 



CHAPTER XI 
STEEL AND RUBBER 

It has been shown already in this volume that the 
materials from which man has made his tools, and 
those tools themselves, are the best means of determin- 
ing his advance in civilization. Man passed from 
the Stone Age with its few, crude implements into the 
Bronze Age, and from this into the Iron Age, with 
each succeeding step increasing the number and 
efficiency of his tools. The race has lately passed into 
an age which might well be named the Age of Steel. 
The discovery or invention of this metal — for there is 
in it the nature of both invention and discovery — • 
is sufficiently important to mark a distinct era in human 
progress. 

Steel is not found native, but is a compound of iron 
and carbon and is produced artificially. The great 
value of steel lies in the fact that it can be made so 
hard that it can cut and shape almost every other 
substance known to man, and yet this very quality 
of hardness can be so modified as to make the metal 
capable of cutting and otherwise shaping itself. Steel 
can be made nearly as hard as the diamond, or so 
soft that it can be cut, bent, or hammered into this 
shape or that, rolled into sheets, or drawn out into the 
finest wire. Nearly the whole of the compound is 

154 



STEEL AND RUBBER 155 

iron^ the carbon ranging from onc-fourtli of one per 
cent to two and one half per cent. Ordinary steel 
contains certain other chemicals, such as silicon, manga- 
nese, sulphur, and phosphorus, but these are mere 
natural impurities existing in the metal. The essential 
ingredients are iron and carbon. Steel is hardened 
by being heated to a high temperature and then sud- 
denly cooled by contact wdth cold water, or in other 
like ways. Fixing the degree of hardness in a piece 
of steel is called tempering. The degree of hardness 
is dependent upon the suddenness of cooling. 

The wide-spread use of steel and its importance in 
the life of to-day are due to Sir Henry Bessemer, an 
English inventor, w^ho was born January 19, 1813, 
and died March 15, 1898. The substance was known, 
made, and used before the time of Bessemer, but its 
production was so costly that it was little used. By 
his process of production the cost w^as greatly re- 
duced and steel consequently came into much wider 
usage. By the Bessemer process molten iron is poured 
into a vessel with holes in the bottom. Air at a power- 
ful pressure is forced through these openings, so that 
the pressure of the air prevents the melted metal from 
running out. The air removes the carbon from the 
molten iron. Afterward the required amount of 
carbon is admitted to the iron, and the result of the 
union is a piece of steel. The process of Bessemer 
was patented in 1850. 

Steel is used in the construction of (ivoat modern 



156 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

buildings, bridges, and battleships; and in making 
cannon, railroad cars and rails, pipe, wire, bolts and 
nails, swords, knives, saws, watch-springs, needles, 
and innumerable tools and articles of every-day usage. 
Manifestly a material that is used in the manufacture 
of articles ranging from a needle to a great city sky- 
scraper or a battleship must be of prime importance 
to the human race. 

The United States Steel Corporation is the largest 
combination of capital in the world. It was organized 
in March, 1901, under the laws of New Jersey, for the 
manufacture and sale of steel products. This giant 
corporation was formed by the union of ten large cor- 
porations, each of which was, in turn, made up of smaller 
companies. Its total capitaHzation is $1,404,000,000, 
or one half of all the money in the United 
States. Its property consists of 149 steel works, 
with an annual capacity of 9,000,000 tons; 18,000 
coke furnaces; over 100,000 acres of land; and 125 
lake vessels and several small railroads. The Corpora- 
tion employs over 150,000 men, to whom it pays in 
wages annually over $120,000,000. 

AVhen on a wet morning one puts on rubbers and a 
rain coat, one scarcely wonders about the history of 
the articles that give so much protection and comfort. 
The story of rubber is an interesting one. The sub- 
stance at first was called '^elastic gum.'' About 
1770 it was discovered that the gum would rub out 




Steel Framework of the Flatiron Building, New York City 



158 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

lead pencil marks. It was imported into Great 
Britain and sold for this purpose, and because of this 
property its name was changed to rubber. The cor- 
rect name of the material now is caoutchouc, though 
its common name is India-rubber or simply rubber. 
It is obtained from the sap of certain tropical trees 
and shi^ubs. The best quality of rubber comes from 
Brazil, though supplies are procured from other parts 
of South America, from Central America, the West 
Indies, Africa, and parts of tropical Asia. 

The details of collecting the sap and preparing it 
for market vary somewhat according to locality and 
the nature of the trees or shrubs from which it comes. 
In the region of the Amazon, when the sap is to be 
obtained from a tree, cuts are made each morning in 
the bark. The milky sap that exudes is collected in 
little tin or clay cups fastened to the trunk. At the 
end of about ten hours these cups are emptied into larger 
ones, and on the morning of the following day new 
incisions are made in each tree, about eight inches 
below the old ones. This process is continued until 
incisions have been made in the bark from a height 
of about six feet down to the ground; the lower down 
on the trunk of the tree, the better is the quality of 
the sap. For the evaporation of the sap, a fire is 
built of material yielding dense volumes of smoke. 
Workmen dip wooden paddles into the hcjuid and hold 
them in the smoke until the saj) solidifies and acquires 
a slightly yellow tinge. They repeat the process of dip- 



STEEL AXD RrBBER ir^O 

ping the paddle into the sap and holding it in the smoke, 
until the paddle is covered with a layer of the dried gum 
about an inch and a half in thickness. This layer is 
then removed from the paddle and hung up to dry; 
and the process of evaporation is commenced anew. 
The raw material, which is an elastic, yellowish, 
gum-like substance, is sent away to be vulcanized. 
From the vulcanized product are made the rubber 
goods of commerce. 

As far back as 1615 A.D. the Spaniards used rubber 
for waxing canvas cloaks so as to make them water- 
proof. But it was not until two centuries later that 
caoutchouc began to attract general attention. Charles 
Goodyear, an American inventor, found a way for 
making it commonly useful, and brought about its 
practical and widespread utility. 

The story of Goodyear's life is pathetically interesting. 
He was born in New Haven, Connecticut, December 29, 
1800. His father was Amasa Goodyear, a pioneer 
hardware manufacturer, from w^hom the son inherited 
much of his inventive ability. Charles Goodyear was 
educated in the schools of New Haven, and spent much 
of his time on his father's farm and in the factory, where 
the father manufactured steel implements and pearl 
buttons, the first ever made in America. The son in- 
tended to become a preacher, but obstacles arose and 
he abandoned his purpose. Though he was not to min- 
ister to man's spiritual needs, yet he was to bring to the 
race a material blessing of great value. 



160 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

Goodyear entered into the hardware business with 
his father in Connecticut and at Philadelphia, but their 
business failed. During the ten years extending from 
1830 to 1840 he was frequently imprisoned for debt. 
All this time he was working to perfect unfinished in- 
ventions in order that his creditors might be paid. 

While a boy on his father's farm, he one day picked 
up a scale of rubber peeled from a bottle, and conceived 
the notion that this substance could be turned into a 
most useful material if it were made uniformly thin and 
prepared in such way as to prevent its melting and 
sticking together in a solid mass. When he was first 
imprisoned for debt, the use of rubber was attracting 
general attention. He became strongly interested in 
finding a way for making the article more useful. 
The chief difficulty in treating rubber lay in its sus- 
ceptibility to extremes of temperature; it melted in 
summer and became stiffened in winter. Strenuous 
effort had been expended in attempting to overcome 
this difficulty, but without success. Goodyear dedi- 
cated his energies to a solution of the problem. His 
experiments were conducted in Philadelphia, in New 
York, and in Massachusetts towns. 

During this period he and his family lived literally 
from hand to mouth, and more than once subsisted upon 
what was virtually the charity of friends. Some- 
times it was necessary to sell the children's books 
and articles of household furniture to drive the wolf 
of hunger from the door. Much of his experimentation 



STEEL AXD RFRRER 



101 



was carried on in prison, with no encouragement from 
any source to cheer him on. At times his hopes arose 
as victory seemed near; tliey soon fell, as what he had 




Chakle>3 (j()()uyi:ar 

mistaken for triumph proved to be defeat. He became 
the butt of those who did not share his own constant 
faith in the ultimate success of his labors. He was 
calm in defeat, patient in ridicule, and always bore him- 
self with magnificent fortitude. 

In the early months of 1S,39 Goodyear could shout 

with the old Syracusan mathematician, 'l^.urcka'M — 
11 



162 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

'^I have found it!" He had discovered that rubber 
coated with sulphur and then heated to a liigh degree of 
heat is rendered uniformly elastic in all temperatures. 
He had solved the problem, but it was two long years 
before he could convince any one of the fact. Wilham 
Rider, of New York, finally furnished capital for carry- 
ing on the business of manufacturing rubber goods 
according to the new process. The firm w^as successful 
and Goodyear had soon paid off thirty-five thousand 
dollars of indebtedness owed to creditors of his old 
business that had failed ten or fifteen years before. 

The new process was called vulcanizing. Vulcan 
was the old Roman god of fire and metal working, and 
was patron of handicrafts generally. The w^ord vol- 
cano is derived from Vulcan^ and melted sulphur is 
associated with volcanoes. The term vulcanize, there- 
fore, is traceable either directly or indirectly, through 
the fire or the sulphur employed in the process, to the 
name of the Roman god. According to the relative 
amount of sulphur used and the temperature to which 
the compound is raised, either soft or hard rubber may 
be produced. Hard rubber contains a greater quantity 
of sulphur and is heated to a higher temperature. The 
heat used in vulcanization reaches as much as three 
hundred degrees Fahrenheit. 

Goodyear's first patent was taken out in 1844, the 
year in which Samuel F. B. Morse invented the tele- 
graph. About this time he was imprisoned for debt 
for the last time in the United States, though he suffered 



STEEL AND RUBBER 103 

a jail sentence for debt in France later. His patents 
were repeatedly infringed in this country, and he could 
not secure any patents in Great Britain or France. 
The United States Commissioner of Patents said of 
Goodyear, '^No inventor, probably, has ever been so 
harassed, so trampled upon, so plundered by pirates as 
he, their spoliations upon him having unquestionably 
amounted to millions of dollars/' Daniel Webster 
was the lawyer employed in the trial in which Goodyear's 
legal right to the honor and profits of his invention was 
established. For his services in this case Webster re- 
ceived a fee of twenty-five thousand dollars. 

Goodyear himself made no very large sum of money 
from his invention, though he added to life not merely 
a new material but a new class of materials, applicable 
to many cases. Before his death he had seen rubber 
put to more than five hundred different uses, and 
thousands of persons engaged in manufacturing the 
various articles fashioned from it. Goodyear died in 
New York City, July 1, 1800. 



CHAPTER XII 
STENOGRAPHY AND THE TYPEWRITER 

It is difficult to see how man could now dispense with 
any of the great inventions and discoveries that give 
him power over time and space. Not one of them could 
be sacrificed without corresponding loss of power. 
Among the great de\dces that economize time are sten- 
ography and the typewriter. Stenography is the world's 
business alphabet; the typewriter^ its commercial print- 
ing press. 

The word stenography is derived from the Greek adjec- 
tive stenos meaning ^^narrow'^ or ^^close/' and the Greek 
verb graphein signifying ''to write/' Stenography, 
therefore, is the art of close or narrow writing, so 
named, perhaps, from the great amount of meaning 
that by its use is packed into a narrow compass. It 
is a phonetic system in which brief signs are used to 
represent single sounds, groups of sounds, whole words, 
or groups of words. 

The idea of stenography or shorthand writing origi- 
nated in ancient times. Antiquarians have tried to 
show, with more or less plausibility, that it was practised 
more than a thousand years before the birth of Christ 
by the Persians, Egyptians, and Hcbrew^s. Abbre- 
viated writing, for taking down lectures and preserving 

164 



STENOGRAPHY— TYPEWRITER 1G5 

poems recited at tlie Ol3^mpie iind otlu^r ^unies, was 
used by the Greeks. The first known practitioner of 
the art of shorthand writing was Tiro, who hved in 
Rome 63 B.C., and who was the stenographer of the 
great orator Cicero. He took down in shorthand tlie 
speeches of his master, by whom they were afterward 
revised. Phitarch says that when the Roman Senate 
was voting on the charge which Cicero had preferred 
against Catihne, Cicero distributed shorthand reporters 
throughout the Senate House for the purpose of taking 
down the speeches of some of the leading Senators. 
At the close of St. PauFs letter to the Colossians the^e 
is a note to the effect that the Epistle w^as written from 
Rome by Tychicus and Onesimus. It has been sup- 
posed that Tychicus acted as shorthand writer and 
Onesimus as transcriber. Certain it is that the early 
Christian fathers employed a system of shorthand 
writing. Saint Augustine refers to a church meeting 
held at Carthage in the fourth century of the Chris- 
tian era, at which eight shorthand writers were em- 
ployed, two working at a time. Charlemagne, the 
great king of the Franks, who died in 814 A.D., delved 
deep into the art of shorthand writing as practised by 
Tiro, Cicero's stenographer. 

In Chapter xxxviii of David Coppei^field, Charles 
Dickens describes his own experience with shorthand 
thus: ''I bought an approved scheme of the noble art 
and mystery of stenography (whicli cost me ten and 
sixpence), and plunged into a sea of perplexity that 



16G INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

brought me, in a few weeks, to the confines of distrac- 
tion. The changes that were rung upon dots, which in 
such a position meant such a thing, and in such another 
position something else, entirely different; the wonder- 
ful vagaries that were played by circles; the unaccount- 
able consequences that resulted from marks hke flies' 
legs; the tremendous effects of a curve in a wrong place 
—not only troubled my waking hours, but reappeared 
before me in my sleep. ■\\Tien I had groped my way, 
bhndly, through these difficulties, and had mastered 
the alphabet, which was an Egyptain temple in itself, 
there then appeared a procession of new horrors, called 
arbitrary characters, the most despotic characters I 
have ever known; who insisted, for instance, that a 
thing hke the beginning of a cobweb meant expecta- 
tion, and that a pen-and-ink sky-rocket stood for 
disadvantageous. When I had fixed these wretches in 
my mind, I found that they had driven everything else 
out of it; then, beginning again, I forgot them; while I 
was picking them up, I dropped the other fragments of 
the system; in short, it was almost heart-breaking.'' 
Till near the middle of the last century all systems of 
shorthand writing were more or less crude and illogical. 
About 1837 Isaac Pitman, an Enghshman, put sten- 
ography upon a phonetic basis and therefore a scientific 
basis. As there are in the English language forty-three 
different sounds represented by twenty-six letters, 
Pitman adopted a shorthand alphabet in which con- 
sonants were represented by simple straight or curved 



STENOGRAPHY— TYPKAMUTKR 1(37 

istrokes, the light sounds denoted by light strok(\s and 
the heavy sounds by heavy strokes. '^Thc IcacHng 
heavy vowels arc represented by six lieav}^ dots and a 
like number of heavy dashes, placed at the beginning, 
middle, or end of the strokes, and before or after as 
they precede or follow the consonants. The same 
course is followed with the light vowels. Diphthongs 
are provided for by a combination of dash forms, and 
by a small semicircle, differently formed and placed 
in different positions. Circles, hooks, and loops are 
employed in distinct offices. ^^ 

Pitman's invention of a phonographic alphabet for 
shorthand w^as the beginning of verbatim reporting that 
has spread to every land which Anglo-Saxon civilization 
has touched. There is scarcely a legislative body, a 
court of importance, or a great convention of any kind, 
whose proceedings are not taken down on the spot in 
shorthand, accurately and at once, to say nothing of the 
very wide use of stenography in private business. In 
this bewildering commercial whirl of the twentieth 
century time is money, and stenography is time. 

The typewTiter, invented about forty years ago, is 
parallel to stenography in importance. The daily 
volume of the world's business could not be accomplished 
without it. And, as in the case of all the great in- 
ventions, men do not see how they got on before it 
came. The world owes the typewriter to two Americans, 
John Pratt and Christopher L. Sholes. Pratt was born 
in Unionville, South Carohna, A\ni\ 14, 1831. In 18G7, 



1(38 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

while in England, he produced the first working type- 
writer that ever secured a sale. A description of his 
machine in one of the English periodicals attracted the 
attention of Sholes, who was born in Pennsylvania in 
1819, but who at that time was hving in Milwaukee, 
Wisconsin. He began working at the idea of the type- 
writer borrowed from Pratt, and in the same year that 
Pratt's machine was first made, Sholes produced a 
typewriter that was practically successful and started 
the manufacture of a machine that was to become 
hicreasingly useful, and finally indispensable. 

No business in recent years has grown more rapidly 
than the typewriter industry. From nothing forty 
years ago, it has grown into an industry producing 
nearly a quarter of a milhon machines a year and em- 
ploying thousands of workmen. American manufac- 
turers not only supply the home trade with their out- 
put, but export machines to every part of the civilized 
world, making this country the home and center of the 
world's typewriter industry. 



CHAPTER XIII 
THE FRICTION MATCH 

The biggest things are not always the most important. 
A httlc article, used many times in the course of every 
day and famiUar to every person, is one of the world's 
great inventions. It is the friction match. 

Fire is one of man's absolute necessities. Without 
it civilization would have been impossible, and hfe 
could scarcely continue. The story of man's power to 
produce and use fire is practically the story of civiliza- 
tion itself. So far as history can reveal there has never 
been in any time a people who were without the knowl- 
edge and use of fire; which, on its beneficent side, is 
man's indispensable friend; and in its wrath, a terrible 
destroyer. 

A mass of mythological stories has come down from 
the days of antiquity regarding the origin of fire. The 
Persian tradition is that fire was discovered by one of 
the hero dragon-fighters. He hurled a huge stone at 
a dragon, but missed his aim. The stone struck another 
rock. According to the story, ^Hhe heart of the rock 
flashed out in glory, and fire was seen for the first time 
in the world." The Dakota Indians of North America 
believed that their ancestors procured fire from the 
sparks which a friendly panther struck with its claws 

109 



170 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

in scampering over a stony hill. Finnish poems de- 
scribe how ''fire, the child of the sun, came down from 
heaven, where it was rocked in a tube of yellow copper, 
in a large pail of gold/' Some of the AustraHan tribes 
have a myth that fire came from the breaking of a 
staff held in the hands of an old man's daughter. In 
another AustraHan legend fire was stolen by a hawk 
and given to man; in still another a man held his 
spear to the sun and thus procured fu^e. 

According to Greek mythology, fire was stolen from 
heaven by Prometheus, friend of men, and brought to 
them in a hollow stalk of fennel. As the legend runs, 
he took away from mankind the evil gift of foreseeing 
the future, and gave them instead the better gifts of 
hope and fire. For the bestowing of these gifts upon 
the human race, Prometheus was sorely punished by 
Zeus, king of the gods. The myth that &re was stolen 
from heaven by a hero is not confined to the Greeks; 
it is scattered among the traditions of all nations. It 
is not strange that primitive man should ascribe the 
origin of fire to supernatural causes. Before he learned 
how to use and control it, he must have been strangely 
impressed with its various manifestations — the flash 
of the hghtning, the hissing eruption of the volcano, 
the burning heat of the sun, and perhaps the wild 
devastation of forest and prairie fires caused by spon- 
taneous combustion. 

Because of its mysterious origin and its uncontroll- 
able power for good or ill, fire was supposed from the 



THE FRICTION MATCH 171 

earliest times to be divine. The Bible tells us that the 
Lord went before the children of Israel in their journey 
from Egypt to the Promised Land in a pillar of fire by 
, night. From the earhest hours of religious history the 
sun has been worshiped as a god. All the tribes of 
antiquity had a fire god. It was Agni in ancient India; 
Moloch among the Phoenicians; Hephaestus in Greece; 
Vulcan among the Romans; Osiris in Egypt; and 
Loki among the Scandinavians. In ancient rehgious 
belief fire and the human soul were supposed to be 
one and the same in substance. In some instances 
fire was held to be the very soul of nature, the 
essence of everything that had shape. '^From Jupi- 
ter to the fly, from the wandering star to the tiniest 
blade of grass, all beings owed existence to the fiery 
element.^^ This theory was believed by the Aztecs, 
who invoked in their prayers ^'fire the most ancient 
divinity, the father and mother of all gods.'' Of these 
ancient fire-divinities some were good and some evil; 
just as fire itself is both beneficent and mahgnant. 

Among some peoples fh'e was used for purification 
from sin and the cure of disease. It also burned u])on 
the tombs of the dead to dispel evil spirits. Greek 
colonists, in setting out from the mother country for 
the purpose of founding new homes, took fire from the 
home altar with which to kindle fires in their new homes. 
L^pon some altars fires were kept constantly burning, 
and theii' extinguishment was considered a matter of 
great alarm. If by chance the fire that burned in the 



172 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

Roman temple of Vesta went out, all tribunals, all 
authority, all public and private business had to stop 
immediately until the fire should be relighted. The 
Greeks and the Aztecs received ambassadors of foreign 
countries in their temples of fire, where at the national 
hearth they prepared feasts for their guests. In some 
cases ambassadors were not received until they had 
stood close to fire in order that any impurities they 
might have brought should be singed away. No Greek 
or Roman army crossed a frontier without taking an 
altar whereon burned night and day fire brought from 
the public council hall and temple at home. The 
Egyptians had a fire burning night and day in every 
temple, and the Greeks, Romans, and Persians had such 
a fire in every town and village. 

Among our Anglo-Saxon ancestors the ordeal by 
fire was one of the modes of trying cases of law. The 
accused was compelled to walk blindfolded over red-hot 
plowshares. If these burned him, he was adjudged 
guilty; if not, he was acquitted, for it was supposed 
that the purity of fire would not permit an innocent 
man to suffer. The custom of the North American 
Indians was to discuss important tribal affairs around 
the council fire. Each sachem marched around it 
thrice, turning to it all sides of his person. Among 
peoples in both hemispheres it has been the practice 
to free fields from the demons of barrenness by lighting 
huge fires. The fields were supposed to be made fertile 
as far as the flames could be seen. In Bavaria seeds 



THE FRICTION MATCH 173 

were passed through fire before they were sown to 
insure fertihty. In some places children were held over 
the fiame of an altar fire for purposes of purification. 

Nothing has played a more important part in the 
history of the race than fire. Human culture began 
with the use of it, and increased in proportion as its 
use increased. For ages man felt his helplessness before 
fire; he did not know how to produce it, or to turn it to 
good account. By and by the secret was discovered; 
mind began to gain the mastery over this great force. 

The most primitive method of producing fire arti- 
ficially was by rubbing two sticks together. This 
method was probably discovered by accident. Fire 
from friction was caused also by pushing the end of a 
stick along a groove in another piece of wood, or by 
twirling rapidly a stick which had its end placed per- 
pendicularly in a hole made in another piece of wood. 
Focusing the rays of the sun powerfully upon a given 
point by means of a lens or concave mirror, was another 
method used for starting fire. The story is told that 
when the ancient city of Syracuse in Sicily was being 
besieged, the great mathematician Archimedes, who 
was a resident of that city, set on fire the enemy's ships 
by focusing the sun's rays upon them with a mirror. 
In China the burning-glass was widely used not very 
long ago. When iron came into use, it was employed 
for making fire. A piece of flint was struck against an 
iron object. The concussion produced a spark, which 
fell into a box containing charred cotton called tinder. 



174 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

The tinder took fire but did not burst into flame. 
The flame came by touching the burning tinder 
with a strip of wood tipped with sulphur. This flint- 
and-steel method was used for producing fii'e until less 
than a century ago. 

No attempt was made to produce fire by chemical 
means until 1805. In that year M. Chancel, a Paris 
professor, invented an apparatus consisting of a small 
bottle containing asbestos, saturated with sulphuric 
acid, and wooden splints or matches coated with sul- 
phur, chlorate of potash, and sugar. The wooden 
splint, when dipped into the bottle, was ignited. The 
first really successful friction matches were made in 
1827 by John Walker, an English druggist. They con- 
sisted of wooden splints coated with sulphur and tipped 
with antimony, chlorate of potash, and gum. They 
were sold at a shilling or twenty-four cents per box, each 
box containing eighty-four matches. 

The modern phosphorus friction match came into 
use about 1833. It is not possible to ascertain precisely 
who the inventor was. But in that year Preschel had 
a factory in Vienna, Austria, for the manufacture of 
friction matches with phosphorus as the chief chemical. 
For years Austria and the States in the south of Ger- 
many were the center of the match industry. Phos- 
phorus is still used as the principal chemical in- 
gredient in the manufacture of matches. The first 
patent in the United States for a friction match was 
issued October 24, 183G, to Alonzo D.Phillips, of Spring- 



THE FRICTIOX MATCH 175 

fiold^ Massachusetts. The ''safety match/' wliicli will 
not ignite unless brought into contact with tlie side 
of the box in which it is packed, w^as invented by Lund- 
strom of Sweden, in 1855. The matcli industry in 
Norway and Sw^eden has developed during the last few 
years with great rapidity. About sixty factories are in 
operation in these countries. One tow^i alone contains 
six thousand matchmakers. In France the govern- 
ment has the sole right to manufacture matches. 

Phosphorus is very poisonous, and the early manu- 
facture of phosphorus matches was attended with 
loss of life and great suffering. Inhalation of phos- 
phorus fumes produced necrosis, or decay of the bone, 
usually of the lower jaw. In the first years of phos- 
phorus match making, the business w^as chiefly carried 
on by the poorer people in large cities. The work was 
done in damp, foul cellars; and the peculiar disease of 
the bone caused by the phosphorus fumes became so 
widespread that the different governments drove the 
match factories out of the cellars and ordered that the 
business be conducted in better ventilated buildings. 
But the discovery of red phosphorus, which nevc^r 
produces the disease, the use of lessened quantities of 
the ordinary phosphorus, and better ventilation have 
all combined to make the malady now^ very rare. 

The fij'st matches w^ere made by hand, one by one, 
and w^ere of necessity few^ and costly. Matches are 
now" made and boxed by machinery. One million 
splints can be cut in an hour with the machinery in use. 



176 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

Some single manufacturing firms make as many as one 
hundred millions of matches in a day. With diminished 
cost of production have come decreased prices^ so that 
now a large box can be purchased for a very few cents. 
Until about 1860 railroads in the United States would 
not receive matches for transportation, owing to the 
danger involved. The distribution before that year 
was mainly by canal or wagon. A match is a little 
thing, but it is one of the world's really great inventions. 



CHAPTER XIV 
PHOTOGRAPHY 

Photography is one of the many triumphs of the 
human mind over time and space. Thousands of miles 
are between you and the wonderful Taj Mahal. You 
may never be able to go to it. But as the mountain 
would not go to Mohammed and Mohammed therefore 
went to the mountain, so photography brings the Taj 
Mahal to you. The chief struggle for civilization is with 
these two abstract antagonists — time and space. In 
this struggle the achievements of photography are such 
as to win it a place among the world's great inven- 
tions and discoveries. 

Here, again, we borrow words from the Greeks. 
Photography comes from the Greek noun plios meaning 
''hghf and the Greek verb graphein signifying 'Ho 
write/' already referred to several times in this volume. 
Photography is therefore the science and the art of 
writing or reproducing objects by means of light. The 
science of photography depends upon the action of 
light on certain chemicals, usually compounds of silver. 
Th(\se chemicals are spread aipon a delicately sensi- 
tized metallic i)late, which is exposed to light. The 
action of light fixes the object desired upon this plate, 
12 177 



178 IXVEXTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

from which copies of the picture are made on paper of 
suitable kind. 

( Like most of the great discoveries and inventions, 
photography is not old.^ It had its beginning in 1777, 
when the Swedish chemist Scheele began to inquire 
scientifically into the reason and effect of the darkening 
of silver chloride by the rays of the sun. The first 
picture ever made by the use of light on a sensitive 
surface was made in 1791 by Thomas Wedgewood, an 
Englishman. The principle of the photographer's 
camera was discovered in 1569 by Delia Porta, of Na- 
ples. To Nicephore Niepce, a Frenchman, belongs the 
honor of producing the first camera picture. This was 
in 1827 after thirteen years of experimenting. He 
called his process ''heliography/' helios being the Greek 
word for sun. His process consisted of coating a piece 
of plated silver or glass with asphaltum or bitumen, 
and exposing the plate in the camera for a time varying 
in length from four to six hours. The light acted on 
the asphaltum in such a way as to leave the image on the 
plate. 

The predecessor of the modern photograph w^as the 
daguerreotype. It was named for its inventor, Louis 
Daguerre, a French scene-painter, who was born in 
1789. In 1829 he formed a partnership with Niepce, 
and together they labored to advance the art of pho- 
tography. The discovery of the daguerreotyping pro- 
cess was announced in January, 1839. The process of 
Daguerre consisted in ''exposing a metal plate covered 



PHOTOGRAPHY 179 

with iodide of ►silver for a suitable time in a ])li()to- 
graphic camera, the plate being afterwards transferred 
to a dark room, and exposed to the vapor of mercury, 
which develops the latent image, it being afterwards 
fixed. Although this process has become almost 
obsolete, it was really the first which was of any ])rac- 
tical value, and experts all agree that no other known 
process reproduces some subjects — for example, the 
human face — with such fidelity and beauty/' 

A little while before the daguerreotyping process was 
announced. Fox Talbot, a British investigator, discovered 
a method of making pictures by means of the action 
of light on chemically prepared paper instead of metal, 
as in the case of Daguerre. Talbot originated the 
terms negative and positive which are still used in pho- 
tography. Daguerre in France and Talbot in Great 
Britain had independently achieved success in producing 
pictures, but neither had discovered a way to make 
photographs permanent. In the course of time the 
pictures faded. In 1839 Sir John Herschel of England 
found a chemical process for making photographs per- 
manent, by removing the cause for their fading. The 
first sunlight photograph of a human face was that of 
Miss Dorothy Catherine Draper, made by her brother. 
Prof. John William Draper, of the University of the 
City of New York, early in 1840. 

Various chemical discoveries for impro^dng photo- 
graphs have been made by different persons from time 
to time, until the art of photography has now reached 



180 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

a high state of development. An important improve- 
ment is in the lessening of the time of exposure to light 
necessary for producing a photograph. Formerly hours 
were required^ but under improved conditions only the 
shortest instant of time is requisite. 

In 1906 a photographic paper for producing prints 
in color from an ordinary negative was placed on the 
market. This paper is coated with three layers of 
pigmented gelatin, colored respectively red, yellow, 
and blue. After being exposed to the daylight in the 
usual way, the paper is placed in hot water, where the 
image is developed. The grays and blacks of the 
negative are translated into the colors they represent in 
the object. 

The brothers Lumiere of Paris have found a method 
of producing a photograph on a sensitive plate which, 
viewed as a transparency, shows the object in its 
original colors. No prints can be taken from this plate, 
and the picture cannot be viewed by reflected light, 
but the colors are true and brilliant. 

The cinematograph is an instrument by which about 
fifteen photographs per second can be received on a 
film, each representing the photographed group at a 
different instant from the others. The advantages of 
this mode of photographing and of throwing pictures 
on a screen over the older methods are obvious. By 
controlHng the rate at which the pictures are represented 
on the screen, movements too rapid to be analyzed by 
the eye may be made slow enough to permit of obser- 



PHOTOGRAPHY 181 

vation; and^ similarly, movements too slow for compre- 
hension or rai)i(l observation may often be (inickened. 
The busy hfe of a city street, the progress of races or 
other competitions, many scenes in nature, and even 
the growth of a plant from seed to maturity, may be 
shown by means of a ^^ moving picture/' 

Photography is a noble servant of mind and soul. It 
brings to us likenesses of eminent persons and objects 
of nature and art which perhaps we should never be 
able to see otherwise. It has been used in measuring 
the velocity of bullets and in showing the true positions 
of animals in motion. Photography has created the 
''new astronomy.'' Immediately after its discovery, 
photography was apphed to the science of the stars, 
and it has been ever since of incalculable service in this 
field of inquiry. Photographs of the moon were made 
as early as 1840, and much that is known to-day of the 
sun has been revealed by photography. So sensitive 
is the modern photographic plate to the influence of 
light, that photography has discovered and located 
stars which are invisible through a strong telescope. 
Astronomers are now engaged in making a photographic 
chart of the sky. 



CHAPTER XV 

CLOCKS 

The matters of every-day life, much less the affairs 
of a complex civiHzation, could scarcely be carried on 
without some accurate and uniform system of measur- 
ing time. Nature herself furnishes measurements for 
certain divisions of time. The ''two great lights'' that 
God made, as the Bible tells us, were designed ''for signs, 
and for seasons, and for days and for years.'' The revo- 
lution of the earth around the sun marks the year; 
the revolution of the moon around the earth determines 
the month; the rotation of the earth on its axis 
causes and measures day and night. But no object 
of nature distinguishes the hours of the day or the 
divisions of the hour. 

Man requires a smaller unit of time than the day. 
He must divide the day into hours; the hours into min- 
utes; the minutes into seconds. The division of the 
day into twenty-four hours is as old as authentic his- 
tory. But the means for determining the hours and 
their subdivisions were at first quite crude and 
inefficient. 

Perhaps the most primitive of all time-measuring 
devices was a stick or pole i)lantcd ui)right in a sunny 
place. The position of the shadow which it cast marked 

182 



CLOCKS 



183 



time. The sun-dial was a devcloj)mciit of tliis simple 
device. It consisted essentially of two i)arts: a flat 
plate of metal marked off much like the dial of a modern 
clock or watch, and an upright piece, usually also of 
metal, fastened to the center of the dial. To make the 
direction of the shadow uniform for any given hour 



A^ 






/^i 



^.>-W '^i5^;..-^>^, ; r 1 







A Sun Dial 

throughout the year, the upright piece was made 
parallel to the axis of the earth. As the earth rotated 
on its axis, the shadow cast by the upright piece moved 
from point to point on the dial, measuring the flight of 
time. The sun-dial was in use among the earliest na- 
tions. Herodotus is authoritv for the statement that 



184 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

the Greeks borrowed it from the Babylonians. The 
sun-dial was obviously of no use on cloudy days or dark 
nights, and even in sunny weather it could not accu- 
rately or delicately indicate the passage of time. How- 
ever, it continued in use so long that to the end of the 
seventeenth century the art of dialling was considered 
a necessary element of every course in mathematics. 

Another ancient invention for measuring time was 
the water-clock. Water was permitted to drop from 
a small orifice in a containing vessel. The period re- 
quired for emptying the vessel marked a unit of time. 
Its 'principle was the same as the common hour-glass, 
according to which time is measured by the slow drop- 
ping of sand from one receptacle into another. The 
water-clock was used by the ancient Chaldeans and the 
Hindoos, and also by the Greeks and Romans. Demos- 
thenes mentions its use in the courts of justice at 
Athens. 

In order to mark the hours of the day, the Saxon 
King Alfred the Great is said to have made wax candles 
twelve inches in length, each marked at equal distances. 
The burning of six of these candles in succession con- 
sumed, roughly, just twenty-four hours. To prevent 
the wind from extinguishing them they were inclosed in 
cases of thin, white, transparent horn. The candles 
thus inclosed were the ancestors of the modern 
lantern. 

Our word dock comes from the Anglo-Saxon verb 
clocean meaning "to strike,'' ''to give out a sound," 



CLOCKS 



185 



It is impossible to ascertain by whom clocks were in- 
vented, or when or where. It is fairly clear, however, 
that a Benedictine Monk named Gerbert, who after- 
ward became Pope Sylvester II, made a clock for the 
German city of Magdeburg a little before the year 1000 
A. I). Clocks may have been made before this, but if 
so it would be hard to establish the fact. In Gerbert^s 
clock weights were the motive power 
for the mechanism. Weight clocks 
were used in the monasteries of Europe 
in the eleventh century, but it is 
probable that these early clocks struck 
a bell at certain intervals as a call to 
prayer, and did not have dials for 
showing the time of day. 

The first clocks were comparatively 
large and were stationary. Portable 
ones appeared about the beginning of 
the fourteenth century, though the 
inventor is not known, nor the exact 
time or place of invention. AVhen portable clocks 
were invented, the motive power must have been 
changed from weights to main-springs, and this 
change in motive force marks an era in the devel- 
opment of the clock. The introduction of the i)en- 
dulum as a regulating agent was, however, the great- 
est event in clock development. This invention 
has been credited to Huygens, a Dutch philosopher, 
who was certainly, if not the discoverer of the pendu- 




A "Grandfather's 
Clock," belonging 
TO William Penn 



186 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

lum, the first to bring it into practical use, about 1G57. 
Credit for inventing the pendulum is also claimed for 
Harris, a London clockmaker; for Hooke, the great 
English philosopher; for a son of Galileo, the celebrated 
Italian scientist; and for others. 

The modern watch is in reality but a developed 
type of the clock. Watches were made possible by 
the introduction of the coiled spring as motive power, 
instead of the weight. The coiled spring came into 
use near the end of the fifteenth century, though it is 
not known where or by whom it was invented. Watches 
were not introduced into general use in England until 
the reign of Elizabeth, and then on account of the cost 
they were confined to the wealthy. At first watches 
were comparatively large and struck the hours like 
clocks. After the striking mechanism was abandoned, 
they were reduced in size and for a time were con- 
sidered ornamental rather than useful. They w^ere 
richly adorned with pictures in enamel and with costly 
jewels. They were set in the heads of canes, in 
bracelets, and in finger-rings. 

Watches and clocks had originally only one hand, 
which indicated the hour. Minute and second hands 
were added later. Devices have been introduced to 
counteract the effect of temperature on the mechanism 
of time-pieces, so that they run uniformly in all kinds 
of weather. Within recent years clocks operated 
with electricity have been invented. With the advent 
of clock and watch manufacture by machinery, the 



CLOCKS 187 

cost has been so reduced that practically any one may 
own an accurate time-piece. The United States is one 
of the foremost countries of the world in the manufac- 
ture and sale of clocks and watches. 



CHAPTER XVI 
SOME MACHINES 

The Sewing Machine 

Civilization owes the invention of the sewing 
machine to Ehas Howe^ an American. Howe was 
born at Spencer, Massachusetts, July 9, 1819. His 
father was a miller, and work in the mills gave the 
son's mind a bent toward machinery. One day in 
1839 while Howe was working in a machine shop in 
Boston, he overheard a conversation among some men 
regarding the invention of a knitting machine. ^^ What 
are you bothering yourselves with a knitting machine 
for? AVhy don't you make a sewing machine?'' 
asked one. ^'I wish I could," was the reply, ^'but it 
can't be done." '^Oh, yes it can," said the first, ''I 
can make a sewing machine myself." ^^Well, you 
do it," replied the second, ''and I'll insure you an 
independent fortune." 

This conversation impressed Howe with the idea 
of producing a sewing machine. The hope of relieving 
his extreme poverty set him to work on the invention 
in earnest in the year 1843. George Fisher, a coal 
and wood dealer of Cambridge, Massachusetts^ who 
w^as a former schoolmate of Howe, formed a partner- 

188 



SOxME MACHIXES 189 

ship with him for prochicing the invention. In Decem- 
ber, 1844, Howe moved into Fisher's house, set up his 
shop in the garret, and went to work. In the following 
April he sewed the first seam with his new machine, 
and by the middle of May he had sewed all the seams 
of two suits of clothes, one for himself and one for his 
partner. 

On September 10, 184G, a patent on the sewing 
machine was issued to Howe from the United States 
Patent Office at Washington. 

The tailors of Boston, believing that a sewing ma- 
chine would destroy their business, waged fierce war- 
fare against it. In the spring of 1846, seeing no prospect 
of revenue from his invention, Howe took employment 
as a railroad engineer on one of the roads entering 
Boston, but this labor proved too hard for him and 
he soon gave it up. Howe's partner, Fisher, could 
see no profit in the machine and became wholly dis- 
couraged. Howe then determined to try to market his 
invention in England, and sent a machine to London. 
An English machinist examined it, approved it, and 
paid $250 for it, together wdth the right to use as many 
others in his own business as he might desire. Howe 
was afterw^ard of the opinion that the investment of 
this $250 by the English machinist brought ultimately 
to that man a profit of one million dollars. 

During all this time Howe was extremely poor. He 
and his wife and children had gone to England, but 
on account of poverty he was compelled to send his 



190 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

family back to America. His fom^th machine, which 
he had constructed in England, he was obliged to sell 
for 5 pounds (about $25), although it was worth ten 




Elias Howe 



times as much, in order to procure money enough to 
pay his return passage to America. He also pawned 
his first-made machine and his patent on the invention. 
In April, 1849, he landed at New York with only an 



SOME MACHINES 191 

English half-crown in his pocket. Procuring employ- 
ment in a machine-shop, the inventor took up his abode 
in one of the cheapest emigrant boarding-houses. At 
this time his wife lay dying in Cambridge, Massachu- 
setts, and his father had to send him ten dollars to 
enable him to go to her. 

Finally the sewing-machine began to succeed com- 
mercially. The inventor's long night of discourage- 
ment was breaking on a day of assured prosperity. 
In 1850 Howe was in New York superintending the 
manufacture of fourteen sewing machines. His office 
was equipped with a five-dollar desk and two fifty- 
cent chairs. A few years later he was rich. Isaac 
Merritt Singer became acquainted with his machine, 
and submitted to him the sketch of an improved one. 
It w^as Singer who first forced the sewing machine 
upon the attention of the United States. Howe 
charged that Singer was infringing his patent rights. 
Litigation ensued. Judge Sprague of Massachusetts 
decided in favor of Howe. In his opinion he stated 
that ''there is no evidence in this case that leaves a 
shadow of doubt that, for all the benefit conferred upon 
the public by the introduction of a sewing machine 
the pubHc are indebted to Mr. Howe.'' From this 
time Howe began to reap the financial reward of his 
labors. His revenues from the sewing machine 
amounted ultimately to more than S200,000 a year 
He spent vast sums, however, in defending liis 
patent rights, and many others of the ^'sewing 



192 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

machine kings'^ were wealthier than he. Howe died 
at Brooklyn, New York, October 3, 18G7. 

The sewing machine is used not only for sewing 
cloth into all kinds of garments, but for making leather 
into boots, shoes, harness, and other necessary articles 
of daily life. Great improvements have been made 
in the sewing machine since its invention, but its es- 
sential principles to-day are for the most part those 
that the inventor discovered and brought into success- 
ful operation in his first machine. It is agreed by disin- 
terested and competent persons that ^'Howe carried 
the invention of the sewing machine further toward 
its complete and final utility than any other inventor 
before him had ever brought a first-rate invention 
at the first trial. '^ 

The Reaper 

In the Louvre at Paris is one of the noblest and most 
famous paintings of modern art, purchased some 
years ago at a cost of three hundred thousand francs. 
It is ^'The Gleaners'' from the brush of tire French 
artist Jean Fran9ois Millet. It pictures three peasant 
women who have gone out into the fields to glean at 
the end of the harvest. They are picking up the grain 
left by the reapers, seeking the little that is left on the 
ground. In the background are the field, the groups 
of reapers, the loaded wagons and the horses bringing 
the garnered sheaves to the rick, the farmer on horse- 
back among his men, and the homestead among the 



SOME MAdllXES 193 

trees. The transparent atmosphere of tlie summer 
day, the burning rays of the sun, and the short yellow 
stubble are all as if they were nature and not art. In 
the foreground are the three gleaners, ''heroic types 
of labor fulfilling its task until ' the night cometh when 
no man can work.' '' 

One of the most beautiful stories of the Bible is the 
tale of Ruth, the Moabitess, who went out into the fields 
of Palestine to glean. ^'And she went, and came, 
and gleaned in the field after the reapers; and lu^r 
hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto 
Boaz, who was of the kindred of Elimilech.'^ 

According to the old English law, gleaners had the 
right to go into the fields and glean. And those needy 
ones who went for the leavings of the reapers could not 
be sued for trespass. 

But it is not with reaping in art, literature, or law 
that we are here concerned, but with the reaper as a 
machine, a concrete thing, a tool, an instrument of 
civilization. 

From the earhest times until nearly the middle of 
the last century the cutting of grain was done by means 
of a hand sickle or curved reaping-hook. The sickles 
used by the ancient Jews, Egyptians, and Chinese 
differed very little from those of our own ancestors. 
This tool was only slightly inijH-oved as the centuries 
went ])y, and to this day the sickle may be secMi in use. 
In many parts of the British Isles the i-eai)ing-hook 
gave })lace to the scythe in the earlier part of the nine- 

13 



194 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

teenth century. An attempt to trace the idea of a 
machine for reaping would carry us far back into the 
early stages of agriculture; Pliny ^ the Roman writer, 
born early in the first century of the Christian era, 
found a crude kind of reaper in the fields of Gaul. For 
the great modern invention of the reaping machine, 
civilization is indebted to Cyrus Hall McCormick, an 
American. 

McCormick was born in Rockbridge County, Virginia, 
February 15, 1809. His father, Robert McCormick, 
a farmer of inventive mind, worked long to produce a 
reaper. In 1831 he put a reaping-machine in the field 
for trial, but it failed to work and its inventor was 
completely discouraged. Against the counsel of his 
father, Cyrus McCormick began a study of the machine 
that had failed, to determine and to overcome the 
causes of failure. He produced another reaper, and 
in the late harvest of 1831 he tested it in the wheat 
fields of his father's farm and in some fields of oats 
belonging to a neighbor. The machine was a 
success. 

McCormick's invention, soon destined to revolution- 
ize agriculture, was combated for the alleged reason 
that it would destroy the occupation of farm laborers 
during the harvest season. It was some years before 
McCormick himself realized the importance of his 
invention, and he did not take out a patent on it until 
June 21, 1834. It was not until 1840 that he began 
manufacturing reapers for the market. In that year 



SOME MACHINES 



195 



he constructed one and sold it to a neighbor. For 
the harvest of 1843 he made and sold twenty-nine 
machines. These had all been built upon the home 
farm by hand, the workmen being himself, his father, 
and his brothers. In 1844 he traveled with his reaper 
from Virginia to New York State, and from there 
through the wheat fields of Wisconsin, Ilhnois, Ohio, 




A Modern Reaper 
This machine cuts, threshes, winnows, and sacks the wheat. 

and Missouri, showing the machine at work in the 
grain and enhsting the interest of agricultural men. 

In 1847 and 1848 Chicago w^as but a trading village. 
McCormick, foreseeing its future growth, located his 
reaper factory there. In that factory he constructed 
about nine hundred reapers for the harvest of 1848 

In 1851 he exhibited his invention at the World's 
Fair in London. The London Times facetiouslv called 



196 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

it ''a cross between a wheel-barrow and a flying ma- 
chine.'' Later the same paper said of the reaper 
that it was ''the most valuable contribution to the 
Exposition, and worth to the farmers of England 
more than the entire cost of the Exposition/' 

In 1848 McCormick's patent on the reaper expired. 
Although his claim as the inventor was clearly estab- 
lished, and the commissioner of patents paid him the 
highest compliments in words for his invention, a re- 
newal of the patent was denied. Other reapers had been 
made in the meantime, and others have been brought 
out subsequently. It is an historical fact, however, 
and one now seldom questioned, that every harvesting 
machine which has ever been constructed is in its 
essential parts the invention of Cyrus Hall McCormick. 

Besides being a great inventor and successful business 
man, McCormick was a liberal philanthropist. He 
gave freely to educational and religious institutions. 
He died at his home in Chicago, May 13, 1884. 

An improved type of the ordinary reaper of Mc- 
Cormick Is the self-binder, now in common use, a 
machine which not only reaps the stalks of grain but 
binds them together in sheaves. 

The most primitive method of threshing grain from 
the straw was doubtless by beating it with a stick. 
The ancient Egyptians and Israelites spread out their 
loosened sheaves upon a circular plot of earth and 
threshed out the grain by dri\dng oxen back and forth 
over it. Later a threshing-sledge was dragged over 



SOME MACniXES 197 

the sheaves. The Greeks aiid tlie Romans beat out 
grain with a stick, trod it out with men or liorses, or 
used the tlu'eshing-sledge. The primitive implement 
for threshing in northern Europe was the stick. A 
modification of this was the flail, made of two sticks 
loosely fastened together at one end by means of stout 
thongs. This implement was used by our ancestors in 
America and has not yet entirely disappeared from 
all parts of the world. The threshing machine was 
invented in 1787 by Andrew Meikle, a Scotchman. 
Only a few years ago threshing machines were drawn 
by horses, but of late years they have been moved 
with self-propelling steam engines, commonly called 
traction engines. 

A remarkable combination machine has come into 
use recently, particularly in the vast wheat fields of 
California, eastern Washington, and the West. This 
machine is drawn by as many as thirty-two horses. 
At one operation it cuts the grain, threshes it, winnows 
it, and puts it into bags ready for the market. 

Spinning and Weaving MACHiNf:s 

The low, monotonous hum of the spinning-wheel in 
the old farmhouse on winter evenings, as the house- 
wife spun the yarn which she was afterward to knit 
into warm stockings for the family, lias not entirely 
passed away from the memory of the older generation 
of to-day. Thomas Buchanan Read has a pathetic 



198 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

allusion to the old spinning-wheel in one of his best 
poems, ''The Closing Scene/' And who has not felt 
the charm of the spinning-wheel scene in Longfellow's 
^'The Courtship of Miles Standish/' which pictures 
John Alden as he sits clumsily holding on his hands 
the skein which Priscilla winds for knitting. 

There are tw^o essential principles in the art of spin- 
ning: first, the drawing out of uniform quantities 
of fiber in a continuous manner; and second, the twist- 
ing of the fiber so as to give it coherency and strength. 
The earliest spinning apparatus, and for ages the only 
one, w^as the distaff and spindle. The former was a 
vstaff upon w^iich w^as loosely bound a bundle of the 
fiber to be spun. It was held in the left hand or was 
fastened in the belt. The spindle, a tapering rod 
smaller than the distaff, was held in the right hand. 
The rotation of the spindle gave the necessary twist 
to the thread, and around the spindle the thread was 
wound as it was twisted. The next development in 
spinning machinery was the spinning-wheel, which 
has continued in use in some rural parts of the w^orld 
practically to the present day. 

The series of inventions that overthrew hand spin- 
ning, and made this industry possible on a large scale, 
really began in 1738 when Lewis Paul, an English in- 
ventor, discovered a process for drawing out and at- 
tenuating threads of wool or cotton by passing the 
fiber through successive pairs of rollers. To-day this 
principle forms a fundamental feature of all spinning 



SOME MAdllXES 199 

machinery. In 17G4 James Ilargreaves, an illiterate 
weaver and carpenter of Lancasliire, England, invented 
the spinning-jenny, a device by which eight threads 
could be spun at once. With a httle improvement 
in this invention, eighty threads were produced as 
easily as eight. The idea of the spinning-jenny is 
said to have been accidentally suggested to its inventor 
by watching the motions of a common spinning-wheel 
which one of his children had unintentionally upset. 

Hargreaves is another in the long list of those who 
have suffered persecution because of having done 
something to make the world better. His fellow- 
spinners, filled with prejudice toward his invention 
because they feared it might rob them of employment, 
broke into Ms house and destroyed his machine. He 
then moved to Nottingham, where he erected a spinning 
mill. In 1770 Hargreaves took out a patent on his 
invention, but the patent was subsequently annulled 
on the ground that he had sold a few machines before 
patenting the invention. 

Valuable as was the spinning-jenny of Hargreaves, 
it was adapted only to producing the transverse tlireads, 
or the woof. It could not produce sufficient firmness and 
hardness for the longitudinal threads, or the warp. In 
17G7 Richard Arkwright, another native of Lancashire, 
invented the spinning-frame, which was able to yield 
a thread fine enough and firm enough to make the warp. 
At the time of his invention Arkwright was so poor 
that he had to be furnished with a suit of clothes before 



200 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

he looked respectable enough to appear at an election. 
Like Hargreaves, he also was persecuted. Both were 
driven out of Lancashire to Nottingham to escape 
popular rage. Arkwright's patent was annulled, and 
at one time his factory was destroyed by the populace in 
the presence of a powerful miUtary and pohce force, who 
did nothing to restrain it. And why were Hargreaves 
and Ark Wright driven out of Lancashire? They 
had invented machines that would produce more and 
cheaper clothing; that would give powerful impetus 
to the cotton and the woolen industries; that would 
hft the race higher in the path-way of ci\ihzation. 
What was the reason? Misunderstanding, prejudice, 
and selfishness. The interests of the few were shutting 
out the interests of the world. And these interests 
of the few were imaginary. 

In spite of all opposition, however, Arkwright 
succeeded, and may be regarded as the founder of the 
modern factory system. 

In 1779 Samuel Crompton, another Lancashire 
inventor, produced an improved spinning-machine 
called the spinning-mule. This invention combined 
the good quahties of the spinning- jenny of Hargreaves 
and the spinning-frame of Arkwright. Its chief point 
of excellence lay in the fineness of the threads which 
it spun; from this kind of thread could be made finer 
fabrics than were possible with the machines of Har-^ 
greaves and of Ai'kwright. 

Crompton was very poor. By day he worked at 



SOME MACHINES 201 

the loom or on the furm to earn bread for himself, 
his mother, and his two sisters, and at night he toiled 
away on his invention. No sooner had he perfected 
his machine than he was beset by i)ersons seeking to 
rob him of its benefits. All kinds of devices were em- 
ployed for learning the secret. Ladders were placed 
against his windows in order that unscrupulous spec- 
tators might get a view of the machine. He did not 
dare to leave the house, lest liis secret be stolen from 
him. He had spent his last farthing upon the inven- 
tion and had no funds for securing a patent. A manu- 
facturer persuaded him to disclose to the trade the 
nature of his invention under promise of a liberal sub- 
scription; but Crompton received only a paltry sum 
amounting to less than $350. He finally saved up 
enough money to begin manufacturing on a small scale, 
but his rivals had already out-distanced him. He 
died in June, 1827, disspirited at the ill treatment he 
had received, but not until he had seen his invention 
a powerful agency in British cloth manufacturing. 

An interesting glimpse of the days when weaving 
was done by hand in England may be found in the 
fu*st chapter of George Eliot's Silas Marner, the Weaver 
of Raveloe. The hand-loom in weaving was superseded 
by the power-loom early in the nineteenth century. 
The loom was the invention of tlu^ Wvv. Edmund 
Cartwright, an English clergyman, i)()ef, and inventor. 
The date of the invention was 1785. Cartwright's 
first loom was very crude, but he subsequently 



2C2 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

improved it. The idea for the invention of his power- 
loom came to Cartwright after a visit to the spinning 
mills of Arkwright. He too was subjected to opposi- 
tion from the weavers on account of his invention. 
At one time he was associated with Robert Fulton 
in his experiments in applying steam to navigation. 



CHAPTER X\ II 

AERONAUTICS 

To fly in the air has been the dream of all peoples in 
all ages. ^'Oh that I had wings hke a dove! Then 
would I fly away and be at rest!" sang the Psalmist. 
It would seem from the recent inventions in the science 
of aeronautics that this dream is to become in the near 
future a practical experience of our everyday hves 

A balloon is an apparatus with an envelope filled 
with gas, the specific gravity of which is less than that 
of the atmosphere near the surface of the earth. It 
is practically at the mercy of air-currents. The science 
of balloon aeronautics dates definitely from 1783, when 
the Montgolfier brothers at Angonay in France con- 
structed their first balloons. These Frenchmen and 
their successors developed the spherical balloons to a 
state of efficiency which has scarcely been improved 
upon to this day. The balloon in time came to be 
adopted throughout Europe for military uses, mainly 
for the purpose of spying out the enemy's position 
and defenses. 

A dirigible balloon usually has an elongated 
envelope and is eciuipped with a motor and. a rudder 
by which it can be steered at will against a moderate 
wind. Balloon aeronautics became popular in 1898, 

203 



204 INVENTIOXS AND DISCOVERIES 

when Santos-Dumont, a wealthy young Brazihan, 
performed a series of spectacular feats with his dirigible 
balloon. Immediately ballooning became the sporting 
fad in France and the craze spread rapidly over the 
Continent and to England. Numerous airships of the 
dirigible type made their appearance and many 
balloon factories were estabhshed. 




A Wright Biplane 
By Courtesy of Brooks Brothers. 

In Germany every community has its aero club. In 
the United States there are about 300,000 club mem- 
bers scattered throughout the land who individually 
or collectively own over 200 balloons. All of the great 
nations own one or more aerial warships of the dirigible 
type, as well as numerous spherical balloons. 

An aeroplane, as commonly known, is a machine 
which is sustained in the air by one, two, or three sets 
of rigid surfaces or planes. Unhke the balloon, it is 
heavier than air, and it must therefore maintain its 
position in the air by sonu^ form of mechanical propul- 
sion. It must, in other words, fly hke a bird. 



AERONAUTICS 



20. 




A Bleriot Monoplane 



The first aeroplane was invented ]:)y Henson, an 
Englisliman, who in 1843 flew his machine, using a two- 
horse-power steam engine. In 1888 and in 1900 two 
other practically successful models appeared, one made 
by a French and the other by an Enghsh inventor. 
Langley, an American, who began experimenting in 
1885, managed to fly over the Potomac in 189(). The 
"Wright brothers made their initial flights under motor 
power in 1903. 

During the years since 1903 innumerable types of 
aeroplanes have been developed, all based upon the 
Hues laid down by Langley, Henson, Maxim, and other 
pioneers. Among the most successful experimenters 
have been Farman, Delagrange, Bleriot, Curtiss, and 
the Voisins. 

The flapping-wing machine is called an orthopter 
{orthos, straight, + plera, wing) and is supposed to 
copy bird flight. Screw-flyers, called hehopters, lift 
themselves from the ground l)y tlu^ thrust of varying 
numbers of rapidly moving i)ropellers, revolving 
horizontally. 

Some startling feats have been performed in the 



Y-» 



206 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

field of aeronautics. On August 7, 1910^ John B. 
Moisant, an American, flew in a Bleriot monoplane 
across the English Channel, a distance of about twenty- 
five miles, in thirtj^-two minutes. He carried one 
passenger. On September 12, 1910, Claude Grahame- 
AYhite, an Englishman, flew in a Farman biplane 
thirty-three miles in thirty-four minutes, near Boston, 
wanning a prize of ten thousand dollars. 



Every day new ideas take shape and are developed in 
some form that promotes the pleasure, comfort, or 
safety of mankind. There seems to be literally no 
limit to man's inventive power. His brain teems with 
thoughts and his hands labor incessantly to force his 
thoughts into material forms. He mounts higher and 
higher on the scale of civilization, casting away old 
ideas, inefficient methods, and worn-out machines, and 
substituting the new and wonderful things which he 
has achieved. 



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